Just Finished Reading And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None was a 1939 mystery novel by Agatha Christie, one of her most famous...and perhaps most vilified.  Ten people find themselves together on small Soldier Island off the coast of England...it has a mansion after an American businessmen bought it, but the present owner seems to be a mysterious "Mr. Owen" who has either invited the present guests or hired them on as staff.  Soon after their arrival it is revealed, through a record played to the assemblage, that each of them is guilty of murder and that justice will be served against them...and then their own murders begin, one by one.  Behind it all is an old nursery rhyme Ten Little Soldiers, that lists each one's manner of demise and concluding with "And then there were none". It's this verse that caused problems for Christie and the novel as the rhyme and the book originally had a rather racist title...not just for now but for back then as well.  Later on it was changed to "Ten Little Indians", but now "Soldiers" works well instead and doesn't have all the negative connotations.  Instead of an Inspector Poirot on the scene to unravel the mystery of who is doing the killings...only the ten targeted people are there...it is up to these to figure things out before one of them becomes the next victim.  It's all neatly explained at the tail end of the story.  An underlying premise here is that many, many murders are committed that never get reported as such, with the perpetrators getting off free and not even suspected or accused.  On the other hand, there were a couple of "murders" described in the story for which, in my estimation, it was a stretch to describe them as such (although the behavior was objectionable).  I can see why this novel has been so popular...soon after its publication it was made into a movie...