What a gripping tale! I can see why this is Christie’s best-loved work. I couldn’t put it down! I don’t often go for mysteries, but this one is excellent. The tension is palpable, and the conceit of following the “Ten Little Soldiers” nursery rhyme was inspired. I loved that each and every character was especially awful in such unique ways. And I absolutely did not see the twist at the end in which we find out the identity of the killer. I also love that this novel involves neither Poirot nor Marple. I strongly dislike mysteries, thrillers, and detective novels that have a lead detective because what’s the fun if a character has a 100% success rate? So that fact alone got it a lot of points from me!

The only reason this is a 4.5 star book and not a 5 star book is that

one killer killing off ten people—directly and indirectly—without detection and without suspicion was a bit too farfetched to me. And the way in which the killer obtained his victims was also a bit too far passed my suspension of disbelief. I mean, it just seems a bit too tidy that the killer came by the victims’ profiles so easily and arranged their deaths so quickly and was successful with each murder

.

But still, I enjoyed this novel immensely, and I highly recommend it!