Why a Booktrail?
1930s: It’s arguably the most exotic Agatha Christie book ever, not to mention one of the best and so evocative you get sand in your toes as you read!
Death on the Nile (Poirot)
What you need to know before your trail
Imagine the scene – you’re on a cruise, a beautiful and relaxing cruise along the majestic Nile. Then tragedy strikes – a young woman, who seemed to have it all – beauty, youth and elegance – has been shot through the head
But then you remember a fellow passenger having blurted something out earlier on. At first it seemed strange but never in a million years would you think the phrase ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger’, could ever be said in truth. Well could you?
Travel Guide
Such an exotic and fascinating setting at the best of times – a cruise – and on the Nile of all places! – looks set to be the perfect backdrop for an Agatha Christie case. And it is – for Egypt is a stunning and rather mysterious backdrop as it lends itself well to the legends and culture that so many of us are enthralled by. The land of the Pharaohs, and the Sphinx for example are no match for Monsieur Poirot!
Hercule Poirot is on holiday and is floating down the Nile amongst a group of wealthy tourists and before long murder is afoot. A young girl, Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. The murderer must stil be on the boat and so the investigation begins with the threat of that pistol comment still ringing in Poirot’s mind.
“Visiting the tombs at Abu-Simbal was supposed to be the event he remembered and not this murder. And the worry that there is a killer on board and that this murder may not be the only one.”
An old fashioned cruise where everyone on the ship is a suspect with motivations, opinions and eye witness accounts to sort out. A floating murder mystery surrounded with a world of history and Egyptian culture. Some events could be travel tips in today’s world such as when Poirot is bothered by touts in Aswan. His friend gives him the advice to just ignore them.
As for the language – A sprinkling of words such as ‘fey’ add to the atmosphere, time and place of the whole mysterious affair.
Agatha Christie herself remarks the following at the start of her book –
The book is one of my best of my ‘foreign travel’ ones, and if detective stories are ‘escape literature’ (and why shouldn’t they be?) the reader can escape to sunny skies and blue water as well as to solving a crime in the confines of an armchair.
A woman after our own hearts for sure.
Where Next?
