AGATHA Christie’s mystery And Then There Were None has been named the world's favourite novel by the crime writer in a public poll.
Fans were asked by the estate of Agatha Christie to choose a favourite to mark the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth on September 15. Her mother Clara was born in Belfast.
And Then There Were None was one of the novelist's personal favourites, perhaps because of the complexity of the plot which she believed truly stretched her imagination and writing processes.
Despite featuring neither of her famous detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple the book has sold more than 100million copies worldwide.
Several film and television versions of the story have emerged since the publication of the book in 1939.
A new BBC TV adaptation featuring Aidan Turner is currently in production.
The Poldark star will play Philip Lombard, the guest on the island with the most mysterious past.
Lomabard, a former military man served as a soldier of fortune in Africa. According to another guest he was “mixed up in some very curious shows abroad”.
Other parts in the BBC Production are taken by Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, Anna Maxwell Martin, Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson and Toby Stephens.
The plot of And Then There Were None focuses on ten strangers brought to an island mansion off the Devon coast by the mysterious UN Owen.
Members of the party beginning dying in mysterious circumstances, the deaths reflecting the nursery rhyme Ten Little Soldier Boys: “Ten little soldier boys went out to dine; One choked his little self then there were Nine.”
In earlier versions of the novel, a racially abusive term was substituted for the ‘ten little soldier boys’.
