"But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gain-said."
Mystery stories have always been a subject of great intrigue throughout history. The thrill of a crime with an unknown culprit and the excitement of following the detective around as they find clues, question suspects, and eventually solve the crime is one of the greatest adventures you can get from a story. When it comes to mysteries, two authors (and characters) immediately come to most people's minds: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie & Hercule Poirot/Miss Marple; together, these two are often referred to as the King & Queen of Mystery.
Interestingly enough, although both Doyle and Christie are "mystery writers" the type of mystery novels they write are quite different. The type of mystery stories we are mostly used to are often known as "whodunit" stories where you follow the detective along as they solve the case themselves, giving you an insight to their thought process. Christie's mysteries are much closer to the "whodunit" style, where you are shown all the clues and the process through which the detective (or any sort of mystery solver) solves the case. Doyle on the other hand, is quite different as although he provides mysteries, it is basically impossible to figure the mystery out; this style makes sense as the stories are written by Dr. Watson, so the reader only has access to Watson's viewpoint until Holmes lays out everything right the end using information he had knowledge of or got hold of "off-screen". This is actually why the stories are referred to as "Adventures" rather than "Mysteries" in the title; while there is a mystery to solve, it is practically impossible for the reader to solve them. I've always been more of a fan of the "whodunit" style because my interests lie in actually thinking and solving out the mysteries; however, Doyle's adventures also have their own charm to them as with those you get to really use your imaginations to think of theories, and it's a lot of fun especially if you get it right.
But enough about Doyle or Christie and mystery novel types. They serve as an introduction to one of Christie's non-detective mysteries, And Then There Were None. The novel is a non-detective mystery simply because there is no detective involved. Neither of Christie's famous Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot are there to solve the crime; in that regard, the story is much more closer to a Holmes story where there really aren't enough clues throughout for the reader to solve the mystery on their own (although I actually managed to solve it right away thanks to a pretty obvious clue).
The story revolves around ten people trapped on an island who gets killed off by a mysterious host for the crimes they supposedly committed. The people are killed of in the manner described in the poem "Ten Little Soldiers" (in some older versions it's "Ten Little Indians" while the original book's poem was "Ten Little N-Word"). The order they are killed in are from the least worst to the worst in terms of the degrees of the crime they committed. In many ways, the book is very psychological, forcing the people on the island to confront their past crimes and driving a few on the island to genuine paranoia until they go completely crazy.
Something that I found interesting was that there are two different mysteries going on, and the secondary mystery is arguable more interesting than the primary mystery.
The primary one is, of course, who the killer mastermind is; however, it is actually possible to figure out who the killer is straight away. The recording that accuses everyone of a crime at the beginning is done in the form of a trial, which does point at Justice Wargrave, the judge. Furthermore, out of all the people on the island, Wargrave was the only one who was never explicitly shown to be guilty of the crime he was accused of; Edward Seton was undoubtly guilty, and all Wargrave really seemed to have done was just convince the jury to look at the evidence properly and convict him. So as Wargrave's confession etter said, if one of the ten people on the island was not guilty, then that person must have been the criminal. Furthermore, throughout the book, you get a glimpse into each people's minds as they begin to reveal what crimes they committed; the only exception to this was Wargrave, which basically proved my suspicions that Wargrave was the only one who wasn't guilty of the specific crime he was accused of, which meant that he had to be the murderer.
The secondary, and the more interesting, mystery was the mystery of exactly what the crimes each person was guilty of. Some people, like Philip Lombard and Anthony Marston, admitted their crimes right away, while others, like Vera Claythorne took much longer to accept it. Especially in Claythorne's case, the crime she committed is slowly revealed and hinted at during flashbacks, but is never explicitly said. I found that this was the more interesting mystery to pursue because it delves into the psychology of the people's minds and it was really interesting to see how the paranoia of a mysterious killer and the guilt affected each people as time went on and how they reacted to it. In comparison, the more "central" mystery of who the murderer is, I found to be less interesting just because it was obvious to me.
Something that always bothered me was the order in which these people were killed. Wargrave's reasoning for selecting his victims were the severity of the crimes and their personal role in it; for example, even though Anthony Marston killed two children while speeding, he died first because of his lack of moral responsibility. This is all well and fine, but I find issue with the fact that Marston died before Emily Brent. Brent's crime was that she fired her teenage maid after she got pregnant out of wedlock, and the girl later committed suicide as a result; Brent doesn't feel remorse about it because she believed she was doing God's righteous work, but at the same time Brent didn't actually kill the girl, while Marston did, which is why I found it weird that Brent died after Marston. Another person whose timing of death felt off to me was Philip Lombard; his crime was that there wasn't enough food left while he was in Africa, so he and his friend ran off with the food and left 21 others to die. Now, I do think what he did was ultimately heartless, but at the same time I find it odd that Wargrave thought that was the second worst crime. Assuming his account of the story is true (and considering his brazen personality it's very likely it is), what he did really comes closer to pragmatic self-preservation more than anything; he needed to survive, and he did what it took to do so. What Lombard did is most definitely heartless and morally questionable at the least, but I don't know if it's worse than Marston killing two kids on a joyride or Dr. Armstrong killing a patient by operating on them while drunk. But then again, Wargrave himself is clearly crazy, so maybe that explains the faulty reasoning.
There's a lot of psychology in the book. In his confession letter, Wargrave analyzes himself as being a sadistic person who liked to kill people but nonetheless with a strong sense of justice; and although Wargrave is clearly a madman in many aspects, his analysis of himself is surprisingly accurate. Most of the people Wargrave kills ARE guilty of some crime that they never properly faced justice for, as he admits, he clearly gets satisfaction out of having power over life and death. It was a really clever idea to make Wargrave as a respected judge. As a judge, he can utilize that "strong sense of justice" he apparently has and also has power over life and death when he sentences people. Furthermore, his position as a judge was useful in the story as he was the most naturally trustworthy figure for everyone to follow the lead of, and Wargrave even uses this aspect to manipulate Armstrong, who refused to consider the notion that someone of Wargrave's stature could be the killer. It's because of this I really liked Wargrave as the murderer; most killers who kill for "justice" (like Wargrave does) often believe themselves to be righteous or deny that there is anything wrong with what they're doing. Wargrave on the other hand, straight up admits that he's messed up and what he's doing is mostly to fulfil his own desires; he doesn't really paint himself as bastion of morality either. He certainly believes what he is doing is just, but he also admits he's a sadistic man obsessed with murder. So I found him and his whole psychological analysis of himself as a crazy person really interesting.
The revelation of the mystery and the ending segment overall I personally thought was poorly done. Wargrave's entire plot can only succeed if Vera Claythorne goes paranoid, manages to kill the stronger Lombard, and hangs herself. What would Wargrave have done if that DIDN'T happen? Kill Lombard himself and force Vera to hang herself? But then that would go against the whole poem and Wargrave's methodical planning would kind of be ruined. Considering it was all planned by someone as methodical and calculating as Wargrave, the entire plan seems like it's too reliant on luck and for everything to go exactly the way it planned. His entire plan would be ruined if Lombard killed one of the others first or if Vera just didn't hang herself or if anything even went slightly wrong. Even for someone as intelligent and methodical as Wargrave, the plan just seems so flawed.
Additionally, I thought the reveal was also just really lazily done. Really? Just listing it all out in a letter in the epilogue? That's just really lazy story telling and I was a little annoyed that Christie didn't attempt to do the reveal a little more creatively. I think it would have been better if after Vera hung herself, we had the narrative reveal Wargrave was alive; he would then walk around the island looking at all the murders he committed, and then he would commit suicide. The letter can still happen in the epilogue describing his backstory and all that, but I just would like for the reveal of the killer to have been written into the narrative so that I didn't have to read through a letter that explained EVERYTHING. Just an extra chapter at the end where we're shown everything after Vera's death through Wargrave's perspective would have been interesting and I think that was a bit of a letdown and a missed opportunity.
Overall, I thought it was a creatively and well-written book with a lot of well-used suspense and a clever premise. Apparently Christie herself said this was one of her most difficult books to write, and I can see why; with ten victims and a poem to follow, Christie did have to design all the deaths to fit the poem and create a compelling story for each of them. Although I thought the conclusion of the story was a bit weak, it's overall a very interesting story with a compelling premise and even more compelling characters.
For my next post, I'll be reviewing a movie. This one is an Academy Award-winning historical film about racial segregation and race relations in the United States. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!
