![]() ![]() Anthony Marston killed two children by reckless driving and received only a one year ban. It is implied that only one nurse was aware of his drunkenness. We are meant to believe they just stood and watched him gowning up with shaky hands. The idea of an entire team of medical staff at a hospital not realising he is worse for wear and not preventing him from going into theatre is ludicrous. Dr Armstrong kills a patient he is operating on because he was drunk. I suppose The General could have intercepted the other letter somehow but this is never mentioned or implied, for all we know the boyfriend could have got the other letter first.Ģ. I kept thinking this was all going to come out as part of the plot but it didn’t. He merely says “She never found out I knew…” and the two men continue as they were until the General manages to kill him. When he reads the letter meant for her boyfriend he should have known that the boyfriend would have received the other one and would have been equally aware of the discovery. General MacArthur discovers his wife’s extra-marital affair when she inadvertently places a letter to her lover and a letter to himself in the wrong envelopes. ![]() Perhaps he is in denial but there is no hint of him ever coming out of denial.Īnd now for the plot holes… with big spoilers so if you intend to read ATTWN please leave the following until afterwards.ġ. I don’t believe domestic servants in the 1930s were ever automatons like this. Rogers the butler seems totally unperturbed by the sudden death of his wife during the night and carries on making breakfast for all the guests like she is lying down with a headache. Dr Armstrong swings to and fro from calm lead taker to panicky and irrational and displays an unlikely degree of gullibility. The third thing I noticed is that some of the characters seem to ‘wobble’ and almost fall out of their own characters in places. The relationship between pace, compactness and depth may be discussed among writers and readers ad infinitum- I won’t go into that here. Characters get bumped off at a rollicking rate. The second thing was the compactness of the plot and the speed of the action. The first thing that struck me was the simple writing style which was close to that of a children’s novel. If the original title is now considered racist, why not change it to “Ten Little Soldier Boys” as is currently used within the novel? In defence of AC I do not believe she was being racist in this work as one of the subplots excellently exposes a callous and barbarous racist attitude. “And Then There Were None” is disastrous as a replacement title as it immediately leads the reader to expect all ten characters will die. I have never read any Christie previously. ![]() I’ve never been a big fan of murder-mysteries as I find the subject of murder rather distasteful, but I realise they can present interesting intellectual puzzles so I was prepared to give this highly acclaimed work a go. Who will survive? And who is the killer? Copies of an ominous nursery rhyme hang in each room, the murders mimicking the awful fates of its ‘Ten Little Soldier Boys’. The 10 strangers include a reckless playboy, a troubled Harley Street doctor, a formidable judge, an uncouth detective, an unscrupulous mercenary, a God-fearing spinster, two restless servants, a highly decorated general and an anxious secretary. When one of the party dies suddenly they realise they may be harbouring a murderer among their number. Owen mysteriously absent, they are each accused of a terrible crime. Cut off from the mainland, with their generous hosts Mr and Mrs U.N. Ten strangers are invited to Soldier Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast. It’s the end, you see – the end of everything…’ 1939. Agatha Christie’s masterpiece, and the best-selling murder mystery book of all time, celebrates its 80th birthday with this gorgeous hardback Special Edition.
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