And Then There Were None

Agatha Christie would have made a great horror novelist, if that had been her field of choice.  And Then There Were None is the first novel I’ve read of hers, as it seemed to have been her most popular.  What a thrill.
 

The plot is that ten strangers have been called to have a party on an uninhabited island.  When they arrive, a mysterious recording accuses all of them for committing murder and promptly and that they have been brought to the island for justice.  Soon after the recording is finished, one of their party promptly dies.

And then the true bloodletting begins as they come to realize that the murderer could only be one of them.  The only way to prove innocence entirely is to be among the dead.

The story kept me guessing until the end who the murderer was, and boy did it throw me for a loop.  This book alone might get me back into reading the mystery genre like I used to when I was a kid.

Funny enough, though, I already know the solution to have made sure everybody lived.  The examples are clearly set in the Star Trek novel, Kobayashi Maru, and in that Family Guy episode “And Then There Were Fewer” (guess what that one was based on): everybody stays together in the same room at all times, eating, sleeping, and even have two partners with you going to the bathroom.  If there are always at least three pairs of eyes watching each other, there is no way the murderer could even try to get away with a killing because the rest of the party would beat him up.