Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) (Paperback)

by Agatha Christie (Author) "Linnet Ridgeway!" "That's her!" said Mr. Burnaby, the landlord of the Three Crowns..." (more)
Key Phrases: observation saloon, ten minutes past one, Miss Van Schuyler, Linnet Doyle, Monsieur Poirot (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Hercule Poirot is perhaps Agatha Christie's most interesting and endearing character; short, round, and slightly comical, Poirot has a razor-sharp mind and puts unlimited trust in his "little grey cells." Those little cells come through for him every time, enabling Poirot to solve some of the most baffling mysteries ever conceived. In Death on the Nile, Poirot, on vacation in Africa, meets the rich, beautiful Linnet Doyle and her new husband, Simon. As usual, all is not as it seems between the newlyweds, and when Linnet is found murdered, Poirot must sort through a boatload of suspects to find the killer before he (or she) strikes again. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Linnett Ridgeway has almost everything: youth, beauty, brains, and money. Then her best friend Jackie brings her handsome fianc?, Simon Doyle, to visit and asks Linnett to give him a job. Now Linnett and Simon are on their honeymoon, a cruise up the Nile. When Linnett is killed, Jackie is the obvious suspect, but she couldn't have done it. It seems like an insolvable crime, until the famous detective Hercule Poirot starts to investigate. Death on the Nile deserves its reputation as one of Christie's best travel mysteries. This recording is capably read by another familiar name, David Suchet, who is well known among both mystery and public TV buffs as the actor who played the role of Poirot in a series of television adaptations of the author's stories. Expect the trio of Christie, Poirot, and Suchet to be a popular patron selection. St. Mary's Mead was always a quiet English village, at least until the body of Colonel Protheroe was found in the vicarage library. No one liked the murdered man. His first wife had abandoned him, and their teenage daughter kept out of his way. His much younger, second wife had recently fallen in love with a charming portrait painter. The list of possible suspects seems endless. Two different people confess to the murder. Did either do it? Enter Miss Marple, an elderly maiden lady whose gentle manners conceal an extensive knowledge of human depravity and exceptional deductive abilities. She flutters around, asks questions, and solves the crime. But it is the writing, not the plots, that keeps Christie fans coming back. James Saxon gives a clear, competent reading in Murder at the Vicarage, although initially his voice strikes one as brighter and sharper than one would expect from the gentle, scholarly rector. Eighty-odd years after her first book was published, Christie and her mysteries are more popular than ever. Both programs are recommended for all collections. I. Pour-El, Des Moines Area Community Coll., Boone, IA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (July 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425173739
• ISBN-13: 978-0425173732
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #478,540 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 16 in The Hercule Poirot Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Christie's Most Memorable Mysteries, April 27, 2002

By	Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Like MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and DEATH IN THE CLOUDS, Christie's DEATH ON THE NILE finds Poriot en route--this time on vacation in Egypt, where he encounters a romantic triangle that seems destined for lethal results. Linnet Ridgeway has everything: beauty, brains, unspeakable wealth... and Jacquline de Bellefort's boyfriend, a handsome but simple man that Linnet stole away from her friend and married. And now Jacquiline is in hot pursuit, unexpectedly appearing to embarrass the newlyweds at various points along their journey. Linnet and her husband attempt to escape by secretly booking passage on a tourist ship traveling the Nile--but Jacquiline is one step ahead... and murder is not far behind.

This is Christie writing near the peak of her skills, offering us a complex tale of emotional fury, considerable atmosphere, and endless intrigue played out by a truly eccentric cast of characters that include society snobs, underhanded servants, neurotic writers, unsavory businessmen, a communist, and just possibly one or two jewel thieves for good measure. Unlike the more famous ORIENT EXPRESS, which offers us a meticulous and extremely cool crime, DEATH ON THE NILE veers into considerable emotional melodrama--and although Christie walks a very fine line here, she succeeds in bringing it off with tremendous flair. And when it comes, the solution to the crime is one of her most memorable and successful, combining the logic and startle-factor that have made Christie legendary in the genre. A brilliant piece of work from start to finish.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Death on the Nile Plot Brief and Review, August 24, 2006

By	Diana Vergara "Felipe Bustamante" (Miami, Fl) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

This is one of Agatha Christie's most recognized works. Like most of her mystery works, the plot is built around detective Hercule Poirot. An uncanny sequence of events leaves Poirot on a train on route to London from Istanbul called the Orient Express. The train is forced to make an overnight stop in the middle of its tracks because a snow storm had left a pile up of snow in the upcoming tracks that disallowed the train to continue on its path. That morning, wakes up to find that Ratchett, a man to whom he had refused protection services earlier in the trip because of his reputation of being an evil man, had been stabbed to death. Poirot takes the case and is determined to solve it. As clues, he uses the many peculiar noises that had disturbed his sleep that night and things marked with names and initials that seem to have been left behind by the murderer. But Poirot later finds out that these things are only proof that Ratchett was living with a double identity, a scheme that would have be motivation enough for someone aboard the Orient Express to kill this two-faced man. Who really was this man? And what atrocity could he have committed that required him to change his name and hide his real identity? Before Detective Poirot identifies any suspects, he has to answer those questions.

The setting, the lead up to the murder, and the never-ending twists make this the great murder mystery that it is. Christie sets up the murder to take place pretty much in the middle of nowhere but at the same time in a civil society. This gives the novel a thrilling and suspenseful ambience of being amongst a murderer in the train in the middle of a snow storm. Christie also makes this novel a page turner by giving each of the characters in the train detailed and consistent characteristics but making it possible for the characters to perform twisting unexpected behavior without losing the reliability of the author's character descriptions. Without telling the reader directly, Christie is able to instill the idea that no one on the train may be trusted. Christie makes vivid images of each scene and does not state much directly. She only narrates the character's actions and allows the reader to imply that character's characteristics. By doing this she does not throw off any suggestions at who the guilty or the innocent may be.

Of the three Agatha Christie novels I have read, I find Murder on the Orient Express to be the best one. When reading this I felt that I was another detective Poirot on the scene. Because all the facts and details of the plot are not stated and can only be assumed by the reader, I felt that as a reader I was to judge each event as I thought was more logical. It is really the kind of book that grabs you and will not let you go.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sinister Shipboard Slaying, March 5, 2001

By	George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Death on the Nile: BBC (BBC Radio Presents) (Audio Cassette)

Agatha Christie wrote "Death on the Nile" in 1937, one year after "Murder in Mesopotamia", and to all appearances "Death on the Nile" was intended as a prequel to "Murder in Mesopotamia", which itself was a prequel to the 1934 classic "Murder in the Orient Express". The three stories make up a satisfying trilogy of mysteries as Poirot tours the Near East finding murder everywhere he goes.

All three of the stories follow Christie's tried-and-true formula: She introduces the cast of suspects, gives each of them a dark secret and a motive to lie, and piles up the circumstances in such a way that the flying fickle finger of suspicion points to every one of them at some time or another. She compounds the confusion by supplying false leads and deliberatly glossing over hot clues. In each case Poirot holds his cards close to his vest, tantalizes the reader/listener with cryptic comments, and finds the most inconsequential-appearing facts to be highly significant. Eventually Poirot airs everyone's dirty laundry, explains his chain of deductive reasoning, reconstructs the crime in all its improbable complexity, and gets a confession.

Of the three stories, however, "Death on the Nile" presents the most feasible modus operandi for the murder, as well as the most likely motivation for murder. This is a roudabout way of saying that "Death on the Nile" is the most realistic of the three.

I listened to the BBC production of "Death on the Nile" and found it the easiest of the three stories for the listener to follow. For "Orient Express" and "Mesopotamia" you need a flow chart to keep up with all the twists, turns, and complexities of the plot. All in all, "Death on the Nile" provides the listener with an entertaining, satisfying story of murder and mayhem.