And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None (also known as Ten Little Indians, Ten Little Niggers and The Nigger in the Woodpile) is a detective novel by Agatha Christie first published in 1939.

Plot

The story focuses on ten strangers who are all (but one) brought, by misleading information, to an island off the coast of Devon, southern England.

Related Topics:
Devon - England

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On their first night, the ten realize that they have been brought to the island under false pretence, but now have no means of getting away. A mysterious gramophone recording informs them that all ten of them are guilty of "murders", i.e. killings or unlawful deaths which they thought they had gotten away with.

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On the first night, a brash young heir and the cook are both killed. In the morning, the survivors realize that the murderer can only be one of them, and whoever it is is playing a game - killing them in manners poetically similar to a nursery rhyme, and also removing one of ten little figurines in the dining room for each death.

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After the deaths of a General, a spinster and the butler (killed in manners ranging from potassium cyanide poisoning to being chopped by an axe), the five remaining - a doctor, a judge, an African explorer, a beautiful young secretary, and the mysterious Mr. Blore - become increasingly paranoid. And when, after one long night, two more die, the three remaining find themselves in a battle of wills.

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By the novel's end, all ten guests are dead, leaving a "locked room mystery", which is resolved by a letter in a bottle tossed into the ocean and recovered by a trawler and delivered to the police, which was written by the murderer.

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