A highly suspenseful read by a talented author, but without high morals.
Plot
Ten people receive invitations to spend their vacations at lonely Indian Island, and ten people accept. Upon their arrival, however, they find no host or hostess...only ten little Indian figurines on the table and a nursery rhyme over the mantlepiece in each bedroom.
Cut off from the mainland and with no one else on the island, one by one the guests are mysteriously murdered.
Morality
Morality isn't very high in this tale. Murder is committed, obviously, and the person who commits them has no guilt. Each of the guests has an evil in their past.
Spiritual Content
The one person who claims to be a Christian is shown as an absolute hypocrite, a poor reflection on Christianity as a whole.
Violence
The tale focuses around murder, so violence is to be expected. Shootings, poisonings, stabbings, suicide...they all happen in the story. Christie describes them well enough to make the reader almost feel the pain.
Drug and Alcohol Content
Wine and brandy are drunk, and one such alcoholic drink is used to transport a poison. A guest is drugged before being murdered. A doctor operated on a women while drunk, resulting in the death of the patient.
Sexual Content
One young lady was in love with a man; a man's wife was unfaithful to him. Nothing explicit or detailed.
Crude or Profane Language or Content
"D*mn," "bl**dy," "*b*****d," and several instances of taking God's name in vain occur, but are very brief and rare.
Conclusion
"And Then There Were None" is certainly one of Christie's best works and is also one of her most popular. The mystery is excellently done, the suspense deep and intriuging, the lives of the characters believable. Everything about the mystery of the tale lends itself to any reader of murder and suspense.
However, as mentioned above, morality is not high in this tale and Christianity shown in a very poor light. The way the one "Christian" character was portrayed as a self-rightous Bible-basher was probably the worst aspect in this story.
If the reader is looking purely for a suspenseful read, this is the book for them. If they hope to find high morals and Christian teaching, they will have to look further than this book.
This review is brought to you by Jeanne.
