Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
Hello everyone, and happy Bank Holiday weekend to you. Here is the UK it is a 3 day weekend. Wahoo! We have a busy weekend culminating in our Village Hog Roast where we all bring a salad, table, cutlery and any beverages we like and camp out on the village green as a community. It's a lovely event, and is just so nice to see everyone.
This morning I finished the book that has been on my bookshelf the longest, review incoming for that one. But today I am reviewing my beloved Agatha Christie. I will confess when I picked this up in the bookshop, I was convinced it was Evil Under the Sun, so started off immensely confused why the action had moved to Egypt. I am easily confused clearly.
The Girl who has Everything including a bullet in the head.
A cruise down the Nile on a river steamer sounds like the perfect way to get away from it all - a luxurious retreat, miles from civilization.
But the warm and tranquil Egyptian evening is thick with hot passions and cold malice. When everyone on board has a motive, Hercule Poirot must abandon the mysteries of ancient Egypt and focus on altogether deadlier matters.
Being a person of a certain age, I remember the Peter Ustinov film of this novel. Jackie will always be Mia Farrow for me, and Simon Doyle the handsome Simon MacCorkindale. Once I had got over my confusion that we would not be murdering anyone on a beach, it was time to settle into the story I knew so well.
This is classic Poirot. A gathering of people with a lot of skeletons in their closet - a wealthy kleptomaniac, a scorned love, a drunken romance author, a spy and a trusted family friend who is not what he seems. And of course, a murder. This time a murder so ingenious it takes Poirot to solve it. I could not imagine anyone other detective working out what had happened.
Poirot's kindness shines through here. He is protective towards poor, desolate Jackie de Bellefort mourning the loss of her fiance to her best friend Linette Ridgeway. Poirot's gentle tone, and guiding hand making what happens seem even more terrible.
This remains one of my favourite Poirot's, if I'm honest because I have such lovely memories of a film that stayed true to the book. It's a strong contender for my favourite Agatha Christie and a true classic in every sense of the word.
