The basic premise of this novel is that ten strangers (well, eight strangers and one married couple) are invited for various reasons to come to the infamous Indian Island. The island’s owner, U.N. Owen has sent personal letters to these people asking them to arrive on the same date. Once the ten guests get to the island, they find that their host is absent and they have to entertain themselves. Early on in the story, a gramophone is played, and the voice on it announces that each person on the island is guilty of murder.

Even though each character got a little unique description in the beginning, and their murders are described through interesting internal monologue, I had a hard time keeping them straight. Lucky for me, they started dying off pretty quickly. After it got down to seven people alive, everyone had pretty well-developed personalities, and I started trying to figure out who the killer was. Agatha Christie is a master of suspense in this novel. She heaps suspicion on everyone, so even though I picked one person who I thought was the culprit, I was always suspicious of at least three other people at the same time.

I never thought I would claim a book to be a fast-paced murder mystery, but this novel definitely fits that description. It only took me a couple days to read because the mystery was set up extremely well, so I was always kept guessing. I feel comfortable saying that I did NOT guess the murderer’s identity correctly. Once the number of guests dwindled, I got to learn more about each guests personality, which was fun and added a strong human element to the story, and also made it that much more difficult to guess who the killer was. If you enjoy murder mysteries (and really, even if you don’t), I highly recommend reading this novel.