Reviews with content warning for Torture - Dieci piccoli indiani

Honestly, I was not expecting this book to be that good. In the beginning, there were a few comments that made me wonder whether I was going to like the book, but it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable read.

We follow a group of people as they are lured onto an island - Soldier Island, to be exact. I won’t go into each character in detail, as it will probably take all day, and, if I’m honest, I can’t remember half of their names. All of them don’t know each other, and have been sent letters by a man called Owen, inviting them using their own needs to get them down there. One of them was offered a job as a secretary, others the promise of seeing an old friend, etc etc.

They get to the island and go to the house, and each pick out a room. At this point, there is no sign of Owen, and he has sent a letter saying he is ‘caught up’. In each room is a poem about 10 little soldiers, a dear old nursery rhyme, describing how each soldier died until there was none left. They all think about how weird it is.

They go down for dinner. Unfortunately, a grammar phone plays a particularly scary message, accusing all of them of killing people. No one knows this yet, but these are all true, accident or not. They accuse everyone of setting it off, not trusting anyone.

One of them dies. They rule it a TW suicide, but others exclaim that the man didn’t seem like he would do that. They find that out of the 10 little soldier statues on the table, only 9 remain. Shaken, they all go to bed. And, when they wake up the next morning, another one of them dies, this time a woman.

They start pointing fingers at each other. One by one, they are picked off, and killed. In accordance to the rhyme on their walls, they go in that order and suffer that fate, and then the little china soldiers are slowly hidden.

They keep going, blaming each other, until one of them shoots the other, and she’s left alone, with 9 dead bodies around her. TW ‘One Little Soldier Boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself, and then there were none’. It wasn’t the grief of killing someone that made her hang herself, for the noose was already set up, but she felt the presence of the man she loved, and wanted to do what she knows he wanted her to do.

Ten people dead on an island, no one else there, and the police are baffled. But who done it?

The killer writes a letter in a bottle, and puts it out to sea. He says that out of all of the 10 people, only 1 of them was innocent (the one that sentenced someone to prison, who eventually got hanged for his crimes - crimes he definitely committed, so his conscience is clear). It was him that was the killer, one of the 10. ‘A red herring swallowed one and then there were three’. He faked his own death, and made it look like it was other people doing the killing, and then he killed himself afterwards, to corroborate his story. He said that he had the urge to kill, but not any innocent people, because he liked justice. So, he killed people that were guilty of murder, and then he felt he was doing a service for the world.

I love this book. I loved the fact that all the characters were so just distasteful, I think it worked really well with the plot. As I said, there were a few comments, particularly about ‘queer’ people (I’m assuming they meant weird, but I’m not 100% sure) and some misogynistic comments, but they seemed to be few and far between, and it got a lot better towards the end. It might just be me being sensitive, to be fair, but I just remember feeling a bit uneasy whilst reading those parts.

Honestly, I don’t have much to say about this book, only that I would definitely recommend reading it. It’s a nice mystery book, quite an easy read, and definitely intriguing. I love the fact that everything is tied up and makes sense, and I love the fact that there is a poem to go along with the plot. It’s very clever, and I love it!

Content Warnings

travisppe's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Felt a little let down by the reveal

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swskorupa1's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolutely loved this. So unpredictable and a fun, spooky read.

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h0neybear's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

An absolute page turner. I am literally obsessed.

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bellebooks's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I must preface this spiel with this: I am a certified ELA teacher who also tutors many students. I have used this for tutoring.

Moving on.

What more is there to say? I think knowing the landscape of England in the time of 1900s pre-WWII helps tremendously, as the novel is more nuanced and intricate that way, making this novel act as a judge and jury of the culture at the time. (I would recommend looking into social classes relations regarding gender, race, wealth, and orientation at the time, most notably post-WWI.) However, that information is not necessary to appreciate quite possibly the greatest mystery novel of all time, at least in the literary canon.

As far as the quality of writing, Christie herself wanted to write a murder that was nearly impossible to solve. (Personally, I deduced the murderer quite easy to solve, but that's beside the point.) Her use of an omniscient narrator works well, as many times, the narrator focuses on one character at a time, expressing their thoughts, feelings, fears, and motives as if a first person narrator. The regression of the characters from a space of superiority, as part of urban society, to one of survival instincts (I hate using the terms "civilized" to "uncivilized") is quite intriguing, as it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of not just all classes of English society but also English (and to a similar degree, American) culture as a whole.

Out of their own mouths, my kids love this book: They admitted that it was slow in the beginning, (and they don't like how it took 3-4 chapters to set everything up), but once things started rolling, they were hooked. They have argued, debated, researched information to try and lock down who the killer is and motives; this is includes literally having a cork-board with pictures and string, mapping out the characters and their arcs.

We have looked at the 1945 and 2015 adaptations of this book. They talked about their favorite/least favorite characters, (Vera was the hands down favorite,) how the adaptations have changed what they've read, why they felt the book was better, etc. (Mind you, I had to do very little prompting. I merely would ask who their favorite/least favorite character was, what they thought of XYZ and why, and to pick a character and look up these two topics surrounding them. They went the distance.)

So yes. This is one of my favorite novels of all time. I may have a lot of opinions of the literary canon, but this novel is by far the first one I would argue to keep in its pedestal.

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