The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 15 July 1999
by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie's world is often populated by wealthy but deeply disfunctional people. In this well-known novel, we meet Linnet Ridgeway, beautiful and rich, and somewhat ruthless in her selection of mates. Sailing up the Nile on her honeymoon, she sails into violence and murder. The indomitable Hercule Poirot is on the voyage beyond the cataracts, as well. Once again, his own vacation is disrupted by a case that needs to be solved. Christie invented so many of the now-archetypal situations in her stories, standards seen in movies and books all over the place, that it is hard to look at a lot of what goes on here as better than cliche. The reader must consider its context and how new much of Christie's writing was in its time. Nevertheless, this is a taut mystery, with all the characters falling under suspicion, only to be clearly resolved by Hercule's little gray cells. Still, one has to wonder about the indomitable politeness of the British aristocracy. In the midst of multiple homicides, nobody seems particularly flustered.
Also by Christie: [Death in the Air] [Cards on the Table]