When the book was published, readers were furious. Critics called it "unfair." Christie herself admitted in her autobiography that the technical challenge of solving the murders was so difficult she had to hide the solution in plain sight—and even then, most people missed it.

Instead, ten strangers are lured to a mysterious mansion on (originally "Nigger Island" in the original title, later changed for obvious cultural reasons). They are a mixed bag of British society: a reckless playboy, a repressed spinster, a rigid judge, a general haunted by war, a doctor with a drinking problem, and a mercenary adventurer.

Upon arrival, a gramophone record accuses each guest of murder. Not the kind you go to jail for—the kind you got away with. A negligent doctor. A governess who looked the other way. A soldier who sent a man to his death out of jealousy.

If you think you know whodunnits, think again. Before there was Knives Out , before The Usual Suspects , and long before every crime drama on Netflix introduced the "unreliable narrator," there was Agatha Christie’s 1939 masterpiece: And Then There Were None.

5/5 soldier boys.