Harper's Island and Agatha Christie

June 28, 5:00 PMBoston Books ExaminerTara Entwistle-Clark

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An exciting television guilty pleasure available this summer is the CBS mystery series Harper's Island. The show's tagline is "13 weeks. 25 suspects. 1 killer," and it is about a wedding party that visits Harper's Island for a wedding, only to discover that the murders that occurred there seven years ago are not over. On July 11th in the United States (and July 2nd in Canada!), the series finale will air, and there are so many theories being presented daily by viewers in the forums that it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by trying to decide what is a clue and what is not. In addition, there is a webseries called "Harper's Globe," with the same killer hunting a different group of characters, that adds to that confusion. The series thus far is available for instant viewing on Netflix. Producers of the show cited Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (or Ten Little Indians) as one of their main influences, and fans of the show will enjoy this book.

And Then There Were None follows ten characters as they arrive on a deserted island, each for his or her own reason, only to discover that there is more to their being called there than they believed. Each character has a dark secret and someone knows their secrets. The characters start to be killed off, one by one, and each murder follows a line from the "Ten Little Indians" nursery rhyme. For example, the first victim dies by having his drink poisoned, hence the line: "Ten little Indian boys went out to dine/One choked his little self and then there were nine."

Brilliantly conceived, And Then There Were None messes with the reader's head and keeps him or her guessing right up until the end. Any mystery fan who has not read it will realize, upon reading it, how influential the book has clearly been in the development of the genre. Anyone who has read it should go back and reread it, because it is one of those books that, once the ending is revealed, calls for a rereading, to figure out where the clues were missed.

In the meantime, fans will wait patiently for the finale of Harper's Island, and hope the ending can only be as satisfying as the ending in And Then There Were None.

Harper's Island photo courtesy of CBS.com