'Mystery Queen' Agatha Christie has written several novels that make the reader turn the pages breathlessly.The ingenuity of her plots and the aura of mystery and suspense that she maintains throughout her novels have been matched by few novelists.Among all her novels, however, one stands out for its sheer brilliance and an ending that would leave most readers in a state of shocked amazement.While it is true that guessing who the culprit would be is difficult in almost all Agatha Christie novels, it is nearly an impossible task in 'And Then There Were None'.Such is the ingenuity of the twist that the plot takes in the end.Eight men, each from a different walk of life, are invited to a mansion in an isolated island.The invitations are sent through post and are written credibly and convincingly.On arriving at the mansion, the eight people learn that their hosts are away, and that they would be attended to by a married couple.The married couple in question, however, are under the impression that they are invitees too.In the middle of all this confusion, a gramophone plays an audio that night, accusing each of the ten people of murder of a person.This takes the guests aback.While the guests acknowledge knowing the person they are accused of having murdered, they defiantly deny having committed any act of malice towards that person.The guests then come to realize that they have been tricked into coming to the mansion, and that there is no way out of the island.Things take a turn for the worse when that night, one of the guests dies.Another death follows shortly.The terror-stricken guests try to sense, amidst the horror and panic, of what is happening.One of the guests, a judge, puts forward the theory that people are being murdered one after another, and the murderer could only be one among them, for there isn't anyone else in the mansion.This realization only adds enormously to the horror of the guests.The guests try to be together to try and defy the murderer.However, the fact that the murderer is actually one among them creates an atmosphere of fear, mutual mistrust, constant suspicion, paranoia and panic.The murders continue to happen, and none of the guests seems to be able to do anything about it (except the murderer, of course).Towards the end, when only two people are left, the tension reaches its peak, and the story advances to a brilliantly conceptualized climax, the details of which I will spare for the benefit of those who have not read the book yet.It is a stunning climax, and aptly so, for the book itself is a thrill ride for the reader.If you are a lover of detective fiction or thrillers, this is one book you wouldn't want to miss.
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