Reading Death On The Nile

Linnet was her best friend–right up to the moment Linnet pursued and won her boyfriend. Is it any wonder she wants Linnet to die?

The Story In Death On The Nile

While at dinner in a popular supper club, Hercule Poirot happens to overhear a conversation between two lovers and is struck by the girl’s obsessive behavior. Weeks later he encounters the couple again, but now they are no longer a couple. The man, Simon Doyle, has left the girl, Jacqueline de Bellefort, for her best friend, Linnet Ridgeway. Unlike Jacqueline, Linnet is a bit spoiled, very beautiful, and almost unimaginably wealthy. Simon and Linnet have married, and are honeymooning in Egypt, with Jackie shadowing them at every stop.

At a hotel in Assuan, Linnet approaches Poirot and asks him to intervene. He declines, and advises her to return to England. He then seeks out Jackie and listens to her side of things. He unsuccessfully encourages her to cease her stalking of Linnet and Simon and build a life for herself without them.

To escape Jackie, Linnet and Simon change their plans suddenly, ultimately ending up on the same river cruise as Poirot. The first evening of the cruise, Linnet is fatally shot as she sleeps.

My Thoughts On Death On The Nile

I’d seen two film adaptations of Death On The Nile prior to actually reading the novel, so I was familiar with the basic story. Still, though, I found myself really enjoying it. Had I gone into this reading with no knowledge of the story, I almost certainly would have failed to work out the solution myself.

Colonel Race is a great addition and I love how respectful he and Poirot are of one another. As much a I adore Arthur Hastings, it’s nice to have someone equal to Poirot’s intellect working out the story alongside the reader. The side case that brought Race aboard was well done and didn’t distract at all from the main mystery.

And then there’s the matchmaking. Again, I didn’t love the matchmaking here. I won’t say much for fear of spoiling a major part of the story, but Christie’s continued use of the good-woman-redeems-a-bad-man trope is wearing thin, especially when that girl is so very young and the bad man has no real motivation, other than the girl’s love, to reform himself.

Critics pretty much universally loved Death On The Nile and I understand why. This is truly Agatha Christie at her best.

My audiobook of Death On The Nile was performed by David Suchet.

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