Death on the Nile: B1 (Collins Agatha Christie ELT Readers) Paperback – 5 Oct. 2017

While dining one day in London, Hercule Poirot notices two young people at a nearby table, obviously in love. However, he thinks, trouble may be on the horizon for it is obvious to him that the woman loves the man to the point almost of obsession, whereas his love seems cooler. Some months later, Poirot is about to embark on a river cruise along the Nile when he discovers that these same two young people are to be among his fellow passengers, and he learns their names – Jacqueline de Bellefort and Simon Doyle. But he is disturbed to discover that they are no longer a couple. Simon is honeymooning with his new bride, the wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway, and Jacqueline seems to be in a state of nervous jealousy, stalking the newlyweds and trying to ruin their happiness. Poirot fears the worst, and the worst duly happens. Linnet Ridgeway is found dead in her cabin, shot through the head. But Jacqueline, the obvious suspect, has an unshakeable alibi for the time of death. So Poirot must look elsewhere for people with motives to kill Linnet, and it soon appears there are many possibilities. Linnet’s wealth and beauty had given her a kind of arrogance and carelessness towards other people, and several of the passengers had reason to hate her…This is probably my favourite Christie of them all – it’s certainly the one I recommend most often to people new to her work. That’s because it has all the ingredients that make her work a joy – an exotic location, a closed circle of people all beautifully characterised and all with credible motives and/or acting suspiciously, an element of the howdunit but keeping it within the bounds of possibility, a complex plot that never crosses the credibility line, a touch of romance, Poirot on top form, showing his empathy for those who have been unfairly treated or are in trouble, and all the clues given for any reader with a mind devious enough to spot them. Most of her books have several of these elements, but this one has them all. Add to this Jacqueline de Bellefort, one of the most attractive and appealing characters in all of her books, and an ending which satisfies on every level, and this is about as close to perfection as a mystery novel can get.The setting is an excellent element in this one. Christie knew Egypt well through her archaeologist husband, and she uses the background of some of the monuments of the ancient world brilliantly to add atmosphere and to, in a sense, show how little and fleeting are the concerns of the tourists who flock to them. The cruise passengers vary from those who have a passionate interest in the history of the place to those who are here merely because it is somewhere else to see – another tick on their list of places to visit as they attempt to fill their rather empty lives.The cast of characters is pretty huge – around a dozen passengers, I think, and a couple of servants, plus Poirot and his old friend Colonel Race who, being in the region, has been asked to take over the investigation. Each of the passengers has his or her own story, and Christie is great at giving them all full personalities – so often in vintage mysteries a lot of the characters are just there to be moved around like chess pieces, providing alibis or being witnesses, but Christie never does this. So in this one we have a young woman trying to cope with an alcoholic mother, a young man with socialist tendencies, raging against the rich while happily participating in a luxury cruise, a naive girl thrilled by the whole experience which she can only have because she has been brought along as an unpaid skivvy to a demanding, selfish old lady. There are men with murky reasons to be aboard, which the reader has some knowledge of but the other passengers don’t, and women who are torn between admiration of Linnet’s beauty and jealousy of her seemingly charmed life. As well as solving the mystery, Christie has to make sure the reader is satisfied with the outcomes for all these people she has made us care about. And very soon this reader had a list of people she hoped were guilty and a longer list of people she hoped weren’t. But with Christie you can always be confident that the solution will not be what you expect.There are lots of books that could make a claim to be Christie’s greatest, but for me this one makes the strongest claim of all. A true classic of the genre.

I am not an avid 'Agatha Christie' fan. I bought this Kindle book 'Death on the Nile' for £0.99. I thought it was worth a go at that price. I'd heard of the film/films and Agatha Christie.I was not disappointed with my purchase, I enjoyed the story. However, I am still not an avid fan.This book is quite complicated. I had to re-read the first part after finding myself lost with who was who later on.After I had established the characters it became much better. I had become lost towards the end but the re-read although skimmed repaid.The characters belong in history, fanciful history at that. There are gaping holes in the reality of the situations and lord forbid a murder enquiry would ever be conducted along these lines.But, all that is irrelevant. The book is about escapism into a surreal world inhabited by surreal people. Take that for granted and the strengths of the spiders web the author creates is quite enjoyable.As I say I am not going to buy all the books. But I did enjoy the story and failed to get the culprit myself. if another Agatha Christie appears on the Kindle deals I would be tempted.

This is a beautiful setting for a book – it is an escapist read. I found myself Googling locations mentioned in the book such as Abu Simbel (it is stunning).One of the things I like about reading Agatha Christie’s books is that they give you an insight into life in the early 1900s (the book was published in November 1937). For example, a character says she bought a car for £15! It is clearly mechanically unreliable (as you might expect of a car from that era). In another part of the book, a boy is teasing a dog. A character tries to get him to stop. He doesn’t so she “whipped out a penknife and plunged it into him. There was the most awful row”. The former sentence is remarkable and then you read the latter – as if it was indecent for anyone to complain about stabbing a child. The book never mentions a prosecution – it sounds as if a row was the end of it.Agatha Christie’s husband was an archaeologist and she accompanied him to digs in Syria as well as travelling in Egypt for pleasure. It gave her the knowledge and experience to write the book.The author starts the book by introducing the characters, so you realise why they will all end up in Egypt in chapter 2.As in a number of her books, Christie traps her characters (in this case, on a romantic river steamer, the “Karnak”) to limit the number of suspects.As ever, the fun is in trying to work out who the murderer is. Before anyone was murdered, I did even wonder who the victim would be – there is an obvious candidate but until it happens, you can’t be sure.All I will say (as I do not wish to spoil anything) is that the plot is a good one. The beauty of it is that, though you might work out the likely suspect (for once, I did), I couldn’t for the life of me (no pun intended) work out how the murder was carried out - I still desperately needed the “grand reveal”.You do not need to read any other Agatha Christie books before this – it is a “standalone” book (like all of her books save “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case”).This is a great whodunnit mixed with a travel book. It is helped by the exotic setting of an old river steamer on the Nile, surrounded by the incredible sights of ancient Egypt. It could be an expensive book to buy – it has made me want to go on a Nile cruise. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This was the second time I had read Death on the Nile and I had also seen film and TV adaptations of it over the years, so the outcome was never going to be a surprise. However, I was impressed again by Agatha Christie's plotting, characterisation, and ability to build tension. It is a great read!

And nearly all of them with secrets or something to hide. The plot is rightly woven and includes each of the passengers, but just who and how is really very cleverly done.