Ten Little Niggers

“There was something magical about an island—the mere word suggested fantasy. You lost touch with the world—an island was a world of its own. A world, perhaps, from which you might never return.”

Agatha Christie is a brilliant writer. This is my second time reading this book, the first time being maybe over a decade ago—enough time at least for me to not remember much at all about this book. There are some perks to having a terrible memory! In this case, I had a few inklings about the characters, but nothing concrete, and thus the murder mystery still managed to be a pleasant surprise.Christie wastes no time in establishing the scene or explaining the characters; she gives brief snatches and glimpses of each, enough to intrigue and perhaps make us question them, but nothing so as to seal the deal before the final act. There are subtle moments where you can guess what might happen, and of course if you’re well-versed in mystery tropes, some of these might seem predictable. I’d wager that Christie in 1939 was making up a lot of these tropes herself, or at least bringing them into the popular conscience. That is why I still find this book remarkable and her skill commendable. And no, despite my re-reading it, and being much more versed in mystery tropes than I had been in my last go at this, I was still fairly surprised by the ending—which is exactly what I had expected from Agatha Christie!I regret that this is still the only book I’ve read by her so far; over the years I haven’t picked up any of her Poirot books or other series. I definitely have more motivation to do so now. Her writing style is crisp and exact, extremely compelling—I nearly finished this in one sitting, except that I fell asleep in the middle (it was late in the evening and I was running on no sleep, so not a fault of the book by any means).Nothing is cozier than a good murder mystery during this time of year, and Christie delivered just as I knew she would; And Then There Were None is a classic for a reason! There are certainly racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic elements to the work, but I take these as reflective of the early 20th century—it is important to reconcile that previous works can be flawed in some aspects but still nevertheless brilliant works of literature. To the degree that I hold Christie responsible… well, of course, she is the writer and should be held to account for writing problematic things. As a reader though, all I can say is that I greatly enjoyed this novel and I stand by its monumental placement in mystery fiction.Addendum: Minor rant about the ebook edition of this book. Why are there ads in my ebook, along with countless promotional images from the publishers? Seriously, publishers, you are endearing no one by jamming ebooks with random nonsense. I can understand including previews of the author’s work, but the other extra stuff is unnecessary.