Death Comes As the End [Mass Market Paperback]

Agatha Christie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2002

In this startling historical mystery, unique in the author's canon, Agatha Christie investigates a deadly mystery at the heart of a dissonant family in ancient Egypt. Imhotep, wealthy landowner and priest of Thebes, has outraged his sons and daughters by bringing a beautiful concubine into their fold. And the manipulative Nofret has already set about a plan to usurp her rivals' rightful legacies. When her lifeless body is discovered at the foot of a cliff, Imhotep's own flesh and blood become the apparent conspirators in her shocking murder. But vengeance and greed may not be the only motives...

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Succeeds admirable in picturing the people of ancient Egypt as living persons and not as resurrected mummies."--The New York Times

About the Author

AGATHA CHRISTIE is the world's best known mystery writer. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

Her writing career spanned more than half a century, during which she wrote 80 novels and short story collections, as well as 14 plays, one of which, The Mousetrap, is the longest-running play in history. Two of the characters she created, the brilliant little Belgian Hercule Poirot and the irrepressible and relentless Miss Marple, went on to become world-famous detectives. Both have been widely dramatized in feature films and made-for-TV movies.

Agatha Christie also wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. As well, she wrote four non-fiction books including an autobiography and an entertaining account of the many expeditions she shared with her archaeologist husband, Sir Max Mallowan.

Agatha Christie died in 1976.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books (April 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312981619
• ISBN-13: 978-0312981617
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Christie, Agatha

More About the Author

Agatha Christie was born in 1890 and created the detective Hercule Poirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). She achieved wide popularity with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and produced a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Christie Curiosity, May 14, 2002

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death Comes As the End (Mass Market Paperback)

DEATH COMES AS THE END is a true Christie curiosity. Inspired by both her archeologist husband and then-recent archeological finds, Christie sets her tale of murder and mayhem in ancient Egypt. Even so, the story remains pure Christie: a long widowed landowner brings the beautiful young woman with whom he has fallen in love to his home--and she quickly upsets the household by manipulating a series of confrontations that so enrage her lover that he threatens to disinherit his children in her favor. Needless to say, murder is not far behind, and one death leads to another and another in what must be one of the highest body counts in any Christie novel.

Although Christie spins her tale with considerable historical authority and aplomb, her extremely English tone of voice does not entirely suit her setting, and in this instance the solution to the crimes is actually on the obvious side. Ultimately, DEATH COMES AS THE END is more of an interesting experiment than it is a successful novel and cannot be ranked as among her most successful works--but it is expertly written, and established fans of her work will have a good time with it.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely Different From All Other Christies, May 10, 2001

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death Comes As the End (Mass Market Paperback)

Agatha Christie has a complete change of pace as she takes the reader to ancient Egypt for this exciting tour de force. It might seem an unusual step for a writer who specialized in 20th century murder set in cozy English villages, but all the passions that lead to murder---jealousy, envy, greed, love, hate---are apparently timeless. Christie's research was painstaking and she is able to give us the exact details of this ancient life down to the type of food they ate and the type of clothes they wore. One of the most amazing things to me was that she was able to make these characters so realistic even though they are living in a time and under circumstances so foreign to the reader.

The plot centers on multiple murders involving members of the family of Imhotep, a well-to-do religious leader in Thebes around 2000 BC.

This novel is her most unique, but it has the same brilliant plotting and satisfying ending that all her others have.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Country house mystery, though not a party, in 2000 BC, March 19, 2002

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Comes As the End (Mass Market Paperback)

Life on the estate of the ka-priest Imhotep doesn't seem to have changed at all in the eight years of Renisenb's marriage; returning to her father's house upon her husband's death, its stability comforts her, even though it isn't entirely peaceful. But how much of the impression of changelessness is wishful thinking?

Her eldest brother, Yahmose, gentle, conscientious, reliable, is still henpecked by his strident wife Satipy, urging him to demand that Imhotep create a legal agreement giving Yahmose formal administrative status. The middle brother, Sobek, is a womanizer given to high living, who fancies himself a great man; his wife, Kait, may seem solid and stupid, but she's devoted to her children, and won't let him abandon their heritage however piqued he is with his father. Young Ipy, at sixteen, is no longer a pretty sight after being spoiled for so long.

Then middle-aged Imhotep returns from a trip to Memphis and puts a cat among the pigeons: he introduces his new 19-year-old concubine, Nofret. She's unhappy at being tied to this fussy old tyrant on his backwater estate, after Memphis, but works to ensnare his affection - and facing the family's hostile reaction (except the amusement of Imhotep's aged mother, Esa), begins undermining them with him. (Christie gradually, skillfully illuminates Nofret's character; she's no cardboard evil temptress, and not really evil at all.)

During another of Imhotep's trips, the cold war between Satipy, Kait, and Nofret comes to a head when Kait slaps Nofret - who then reports the truth and nothing but the truth in a letter to Imhotep, supported by testimony from the staff. Imhotep's reply falls like a boulder into a pool: Yahmose and Sobek are to be disinherited, while Imhotep will marry his concubine. But soon after the message arrives, Nofret is found dead, fallen from the cliff path near the tomb (the entire estate is an endowment, supporting the family in exchange for their maintenance of the tomb, hence Imhotep's job description as a ka-priest).

This isn't a group of modern people set in an Egyptian background; the different culture is apparent. (Christie's 2nd husband, of course, was the archeologist Max Mallowan). The family (regardless of their suspicions) is content for this first death to pass as an accident, but as the death toll rises, some attribute it to Nofret's angry ghost while others, including Renisenb, wise old grandmother Esa, and the steward, Hori, look for a more immediate agent. (I believe I counted 8 deaths - I won't say if they were all murders - through the course of the book.)

A novel in ancient Egypt, when well written, is always a pleasure, and Christie (particularly when not hogtied by formulae required by some of her more famous characters) is of course great at designing puzzles with human touches. The combination here is very good.