WARNING: SPOILERS

This book has been on my shelf for a while now. It was recommended to my by someone I met on Omegle(rip) while talking about books. They were very much into mystery novels and since I have no experience with them I asked them to commend me a book which was this one. And to be honest after some contemplation I have to say I did enjoy the book a little but not for its story and more for the idea I had of the book before hand. To explain this a bit better let me go more in detail in this book review.

Short summary#

They story of ATTWN is about 10 individuals who go to soldier island after all, supposedly, receiving a letter of some sort from someone close to them inviting them to the island. When they eventually arrive on the island they quickly learn that the invites were a ruse to get them on the island of which they by then had no way of leaving.

Quickly into the story our first person dies a rather unnatural death which makes the rest of the cast aware that they will/might be next. Over the course of the story, as the title oh so cleverly alluded to, all characters are eventually killed off which leaves us (the readers), and some characters introduced in the epilogue, with the mystery.

My problem with the book#

The problem now resides in the fact that there aren’t any clues to go off of. For, as is explained by the killer at the end of the epilogue in their own written confession after the occurrence, this was the perfect crime. Everything went according to the plan the killed had set up. Nothing went wrong and “justice was eventually served.”

Here is my dilemma. Before reading, I did some cursory research and deduced that with mystery novels one could eventually deduce “whodunnit.” Yet here, in a classic/icon of the genre mystery, you cannot. My joy in this book was the search for the killer and the hope that I could figure it out without looking it up. This joy was rather quickly stifled in the end when I still hadn’t the slightest clue when everyone was already dead and gone. I wanted to figure it out I didn’t want a 13 page monologue from the killer. For monologues I’ll go to Atlas Shrugged or Hystopia.

Conclusion#

This left me with a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth and I think I will leave mystery novels alone for quite some time now. For this same reason, I would not recommend this book to anyone wanting to read mystery. I would simply shrug and say I don’t know of any good mystery novels.

As I’ve done before I will now end this review with a quote from the book. More specifically, the nursery rhyme that haunts us throughout the story.

Ten little soldier boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were Nine.

Nine little soldier boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were Eight.

Eight little soldier boys traveling in Devon; One said he’d stay there and then there were Seven.

Seven little soldier boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.

Six little soldier boys playing with a hive; A bumble bee stung one and then there were Five.

Five little soldier boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were Four.

Four little soldier boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.

Three little soldier boys walking in the Zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were Two;

Two little soldier boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was One.

One little soldier boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were None.