Death on the Nile (Poirot)

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Stealing a woman’s man practically off the church altar will create a mortal enemy, a soul deep enemy.

Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, and the novel After the Funeral. Abney Hall became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots. In late 1926, Agatha's husband, Archie, revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 8 December 1926 the couple quarreled, and Archie Christie left their house, Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public, many of whom were admirers of her novels. Despite a massive manhunt, she was not found for eleven days. In Chapter 12, Miss Van Schuyler mentions to Poirot a common acquaintance, Mr. Rufus Van Aldin, who is known from The Mystery of the Blue Train. The pacing, at least initially, feels more luxurious than some of Christie's other mysteries. We don't jump immediately into the cozy-murdering. Instead, we settle in to meet the full cast of characters and really dive into Linnet's story. I found her character to be compelling, and the circumstances leading up to her marriage interesting and a bit scandalous. With these additions and reworkings, these new films inevitably throw the original novels and their attitude to race and racism into relief. Christie's books still sell millions around the world each year, and yet the question is: to what extent should they be judged as racist and xenophobic? This is, after all, an author who originally named one of her most celebrated mysteries with a title that featured the N-word.

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Money, sex ( Love is not everything mademoiselle, Poirot said gently, it is only when we are young that we think it is) and revenge are mentioned as a prime driver of crime and as a reader we are offered ample of all categories, including quite some red herrings. E R Punshon of The Guardian in his review of 10 December 1937 began by saying, "To decide whether a writer of fiction possesses the true novelist's gift it is often a good plan to consider whether the minor characters in his or her book, those to whose creation the author has probably given little thought, stand out in the narrative in their own right as living personalities. This test is one Mrs Christie always passes successfully, and never more so than in her new book." [7]

But it wasn't Simon who killed Louise and Bouc – that was Jacqueline. "His lover once, his lover still," Poirot puts it. Simon only married Linnet to get his hands on her considerable fortune, and whenever somebody was close to finding out he killed her, it was Jacqueline who cleaned up his mess by killing the witnesses. The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The action takes place in Egypt, mostly on the River Nile. The novel is unrelated to Christie's earlier short story of the same name, which featured Parker Pyne as the detective. Poirot finally explains the real mystery to Race, Miss Robson, and Dr. Bessner. Their first idea, that the murder was conceived on the spur of the moment after the scene in the lounge, was mistaken; in fact, the murder was planned months in advance – by Jacqueline and Simon. In 2022, 20th Century Fox released another feature film adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh in the lead role. This was the second appearance of Branagh as Poirot after Murder on the Orient Express (2017 film). The plot of this adaptation also includes the non-canonical appearance of Tom Bateman as Bouc from Orient Express.Upon turning twenty one, Linnet Ridgeway stands to inherit her father's fortune. Meanwhile her best childhood friend Jacqueline de Belleforte has come upon hard times during the worldwide depression. Her fiancé Simon Doyle is out of work, and the couple seek out Ridgeway in hopes that she is able to assist one or both of them in finding work. Then the unthinkable happens: Ridgeway desires Doyle for herself and steals him away from de Belleforte. They travel to Cairo for their honeymoon, with de Belleforte closely stalking their every move.

The steamer continues to its ultimate destination of Wadi Halfa, where Poirot’s old acquaintance Colonel Race comes aboard. Race says that he is looking for a political agitator who is responsible for several murders and that he has good intelligence that this person will be on the Karnak. The steamer begins its return journey. Poirot can't enjoy a holiday when the girl who has it all ends up dead. A slow to start mystery, not as tightly construed as And Then There Were None, but definitely obsessively readable. This is a twisty whodunnit with a huge cast that each has their own secrets to protect. Jewel thieves, bigamists, terrorists, alcoholics, and cleptomaniacs are all sniffed out one at a time by the little Belgian detective. Still, by the end of it all, you care quite a bit about the characters that make up this incredibly colorful group of passengers. And yes, Jacqueline, Linnet, and Simon are the stars but not necessarily the ones you're rooting for by the end of the book. Do people interest you too, Monsieur Poirot? Or do you reserve your interest for potential criminals?"Norwegian: "Hun fulgte etter" (She followed after), later renamed "Mord på Nilen" (Murder on the Nile), since the first title almost revealed the plot. Agatha Christie adapted the novel into a stage play which opened at the Dundee Repertory Theatre on 17 January 1944 [9] under the title of Hidden Horizon. It opened in the West End on 19 March 1946 under the title Murder on the Nile and on Broadway on 19 September 1946 under the same title.