rogue lawman

Vile Villain No. 8: Lawrence Wargrave from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None

Spoiler alert: This post contains specific Plot information.

And Then There Was None was the first grown-up detective novel I read. To this day, it's the one with the most shocking ending I've ever seen.

If you've read it, you know why.

It's the perfect crime.

Hide your bloodlust most of your life while handing down vicious verdicts as a judge. Fake your own death while systematically killing off everyone else you trapped on an island using a poem as inspiration. Leave almost no clues of who the real killer was only to reveal it posthumously through a message in a bottle.

Judge Wargrave pulled it off, and he would have gotten away with it if not for his own desire to be acknowledged.

Sure, most of his victims were unpunished killers and guilty to his thinking. It still doesn't change the fact that he chose to terrorize people to see the murder through and did it only, because he spent most of his life wanting to kill them.

Totally creepy and bad, right?

Check back later, today, for No. 7. 

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