The review of And Then There Were None, written by Agatha Christie, by Alexia Bacigalupi in the October 2011 issue had me hooked right from the first sentence. I had read the novel before, but this review reminded me of every reason for its place on my Top Ten list.

And Then There Were None is a bone-chilling murder mystery, and Alexia really gets that point across. She states it is a “tale of twisted justice and psychological fear.” That should immediately intrigue anyone who enjoys a good mystery. I agree that Christie’s writing style and plot add to the novel’s heart-racing suspense, which is so great that the book “practically vibrates,” says Alexia in the review. Anyone who picks up this book will not put it down for a second, and I speak from personal experience.

However, there is one point Alexia made that I do not completely agree with. She claims that there are so many characters in the novel it is easy to mix them up. This may be somewhat true, but I don’t think that the characters are flat, as she states near the end of her review. They may not be as well-developed as a character from a book with one protagonist, but you can certainly think of them as real people. Although there aren’t many visual details, I thought Agatha Christie did a fine job of making her characters come to life. With ten of them, any other writer might have found it challenging to give each a different personality, but Christie succeeded.

Aside from this minor disagreement, I think Alexia did an amazing job of summing up And Then There Were None and the advantages of reading it. It is said that Agatha Christie is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare, so we are clearly not the only people on Earth who love her work. However, there is only one way to find out if you agree with us, and I recommend starting as soon as possible.