And Then There Were None

"It is perfectly clear. Mr. Owen is one of us..." (150).

This novel is the first Agatha Christie that I read. It also happens to be one of her most famous works, adapted time and again into movies, plays, and other mysteries that owe their existence to Christie's influences. What makes the simple recipe of her cliffhangers so addictive? As she wrote, she had not even deciphered the enigmas for herself. Her process was one of writing without thought for how the book would end--she let the mystery run away with itself, as it were. Christie is quoted as saying that she would often change her decision on who the murderer was in the midst of drafting her stories. The simple, stock characters, all with something seemingly sinister to hide, sever the idea of absolution from the ending. Everyone is guilty! The question becomes, who is guilty of this crime? Murders are being committed in increasingly mind-boggling ways, and there is a psychological underpinning that invokes a certain terror as the reader contemplates the meaning of true culpability. However frustrating the process may sound to me, her recipe for a satisfying mystery seems to be working...

I read an article a few months ago about some tourists visiting her home and becoming stranded there during a storm that blocked the only road to her isolated residence. How they felt about being stuck, miles from any civilization, was not recorded in the report--but I couldn't help thinking, This is exactly what she would have wanted. The really interesting aspect of such a real-life occurrence is the simultaneous oddity and predictability of it all. Of course, one of the most famous mystery novel writers of all time would live in a foreboding mansion on the other side of a harrowing, single road. But an unsuspecting group of mystery novel fans being told they are victims of a sudden storm and will be inhabiting this home for an unforeseeable number of hours? A plot twist of astronomically ironic proportions.

1. "Outside the rain poured down and the wind howled in great shuddering gusts against the windowpanes" (167).

The foreshadowing. Agatha Christie's pacing is impeccable. Her revelations of each murder and subsequent descriptions of the guests descending into madness alongside each other extend just long enough to drive the reader to his or her own form of insanity. She manages to reveal the next clue at exactly the right moment, either before or after the reader (or the characters) expect it. I finished this book in two days; the chapters are neither too long nor too short. Christie has defined the perfect framework for a satisfying riddle. 

2. "Mr. Justice Wargrave was sitting in his high-backed chair at the end of the room. Two candles burned on either side of him. But what shocked and startled the onlookers was the fact that he sat there robed in scarlet with a judge's wig upon his head" (222).

The theatricality. There is something to be said about the camp and hyperbole of the mystery genre. The best mysteries are the ones that embrace such drama and use it to their advantage. Imaginations are captured by the enduring commotion of the inscrutable, the strange, and the quizzically outlandish. Christie's descriptions provoke an image: she triggers emotion through the atmosphere of the scene. The balance between subtlety and sensation is where a successful mystery lies.

3. "...writing my confession, enclosing it in a bottle, sealing the latter, and casting it into the waves" (285).

A mystery too subtle? One possible critique is the extremely detailed back story given to explain the motivation for such seemingly passionate bloodlust. It is possible that a serial killer, à la Dexter, kills for psychotic reasoning that is a combination between commonly accepted morals and the need for personal vindication in some form. And Then There Were None is not the story of such a murderer. The architect of this nightmarish scenario may turn out to inhabit that realm, but the book itself does not endeavor to explore such a conscience. Christie focuses on the reactions of the victims as they try to decipher a scheme that is not rooted in common sense. The ending may feel unsatisfying when many of the clues to the identity of the enemy are unknowable outside of the context of his or her personal background.