Why The Twenty Rules In And Then There Were None By Agatha Christie

In Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None there are at least two of the twenty rules from “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” by Van Dine used. These two rules being “The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story — that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar and in whom he takes an interest” (Van Dine) and “No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself” (Van Dine)

In And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie One of the many rules from “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” by Van Dine shown is “The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story. . .” (Van Dine). In the confession the murder mentions that “from an early age I knew very strongly the

One of the times we see the rule being used is towards the end of the story when Justice Wargrave is planning his own death. He used the revolver that Vera Claythorn had used to kill Philip Lombard. He states “my hand, protected with a handkerchief, will press the trigger. My hand will fall to my side, the revolver, pulled by the elastic will recoil to the door, jarred by the door-handle it will detach itself from the elastic and fall” (Christie 275). We as readers know that this happened but the detectives do not. As far as they know Wargrave was murdered just like the others on the island. This is a trick set by Wargrave on the detectives but not the readers. The rule “No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself” (Van Dine) is clearly used in the