Product Description

Agatha Christie's world-famous mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N.Owen. Over dinner, a record begins to play, and the voice of an unseen host accuses each person of hiding a guilty secret. That evening, former reckless driver Tony Marston is found murdered by a deadly dose of cyanide. The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but is preparing to strike again! and again!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13416 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'Agatha Christie's masterpiece.' Spectator 'One of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies.' Observer 'The most astonishingly impudent, ingenious and altogether successful mystery story since The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.' Daily Herald 'One of the most ingenious thrillers in many a day.' Time Magazine 'There is no doubt that this is a highly ingenious jigsaw by a master of puzzling.' Books 'There is no cheating; the reader is just bamboozled in a straightforward way from first to last! The most colossal achievement of a colossal career. The book must rank with Mrs Christie's previous best -- on the top notch of detection.' New Statesman 'The whole thing is utterly impossible and utterly fascinating. It is the most baffling mystery Agatha Christie has ever written.' New York Times

The Observer
‘One of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies.’

The Daily Herald
‘The most astonishingly impudent, ingenious and altogether successful mystery story since The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.’

Customer Reviews

Possibly the most essential Christie
Agatha Christie has her detractors as well as her fans; and sometimes not without reason. However this book has to count as a brilliant one-off which not only blurs the barrier between crime and detective fiction but manages to be simultaneously scrupulously fair (all the clues you need to solve the mystery are there) and desperately hard to solve. If you read only one Christie make sure it is this one.

Jolly clever, but...
Ms Christie had an outstanding idea, she obviously put a lot of work into lining up the plot, and the result is entertaining and compelling. But while reading it I couldn't help wishing that she had been a better writer. The style is clunky, although admittedly with several surprising flourishes, and (as a result) the characters are cardboard cut-outs. That's a pity, because a greater empathy with the characters would have deepened the suspense and drama. And the denouement is hard to take (without giving much away - though you might want to skip to the next paragraph - I doubt that the final act of the perpetrator is physically possible).

So yes, lots of fun, but a masterpiece? Hardly.

PERFECT, nothing else to say.
I picked this up at a jumble sale. Its been years since I read an Agatha Christe book.
"They dont make them like they used to" as they say.
I am now buying her old books and reading again. Mary Higgens and Danile Steels cant hold a candle to her.