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Writer's picturemainakmajumdar9

A Book Review of A Detective Novel of Agatha Christie — ‘Death On The Nile’

Updated: Apr 17

Original Article was published in my Medium Page


Agatha Christie has always fascinated our imaginations on detective stories through her character Hercules Poirot. The full name of Agatha Christie was Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie and she was born on September 15, 1890 and she left for her heavenly abode on January 12, 1976. She was a detective novelist and have written books which has sold more than 100 million copies with more than 100 translations in different languages. This is one of her novel — ‘Death on the Nile’, which I read recently.


Photograph of the Book — Death On The Nile by Agatha Christie


She wrote this book after coming back from a trip during a winter in Egypt. She travelled on a steamer from Assuan to Wadi Halfa and She wrote this novel out of her imaginations. Sometimes, I feel how can someone imagine beautifully characters and write a story, which seems so real. The language of the story, the presentation of the facts, the analytical skill of Agatha Christie’s favorite character Hercules Poirot all will definitely entertain the readers. In this 21st Century her writings still interest readers of all ages. That’s the beauty and skill of Agatha Christie.


This book starts with many characters who wanted to travel on SS Karnak while they visited Egypt. The main attraction of this book was a character named Ms. Linnet Ridgeway who was a beautiful lady with large amount of inherited fortunes. It was her sudden decision to marry her close friend Jacqueline de Bellefort’s boyfriend Simon Doyle, which startled the world and the media. Jacqueline was shocked and showed melodramatic behaviors about the entire incident and deplored relations with her childhood friend. Simon on the other hand, survived almost hand to mouth suddenly became very rich because of Ms. Linnet Ridgeway. As per the story one friend of Ms Linnet, Hon. Joanna Southwood tried to stop her interaction with Jacqueline, which She did not heed.


Everyone was very curious about Linnet and her life as She was the talk of the town. However, it was during the trip on the luxurious steamer, things changed. Detective Poirot was also in the same steamer enjoying the holiday, which ultimately turned into one of his most talked detective stories.


In the end, a few lines of the conversation between detective Poirot and Jacqueline which was touching:


‘She said with a sudden smile: ‘Do you remember when I said I must follow my star? You said it might be a false star. And I said.. “That very bad star, that star fall down.”


It’s a very interesting read and as per the words of Agatha Christie, the book is one of the best of her ‘foreign travel’ stories and I too echo the same feeling and I believe that the book can be read at one flow, once anyone starts reading it. The book is likely to take one’s imagination to the life at a steamer with cabins and also read the detective story, whose ending is likely to surprise the reader.


If I have to rate the book on 10 stars and 10 being the highest, I will give the book 9 stars.


You can watch the Trailer of the Movie at:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZRqB0JLizw


https://www.hotstar.com/in/movies/death-on-the-nile/1260090746/watch


(Please Note: The above are my own personal thoughts after going through the book. Your views and opinions after reading the book may differ. The names of the character mentioned above are those written in the book — Death on the Nile)


Details about Agatha Christie may be read at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Agatha-Christie


Thanks for visiting the Book Review Website:



Thanks and Regards:

Mainak Majumdar, Book Critic

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