The tranquility of a lovely cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life.
Who’s also on board? Christie’s great detective Hercule Poirot. He recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Despite the exotic setting, nothing is ever quite what it seems…
This was the February pick for the Read Christie 2022 Challenge due to the new adaptation being released in February. I have read this book before and it was and remains one of my favourite Agatha Christie books. I don’t think anyone will be surprised to know that I gave it 5 stars.
This book started off with an introduction to a whole gaggle of characters. The main characters being Poirot (of course), Linnet Ridgeway, Jacqueline De Belfort, and Simon Doyle. Linnet was introduced as a spoiled heiress with little regard for other people. Her childhood best friend, Jaqueline had fallen in love and intended to be married. The only issue was that her fiancé, Simon Doyle, was a penniless younger son of a Lord, she asked her best friend to hire him and she obliged. Various other characters were introduced and the introduction ended with the announcement that Linnet Ridgeway had married Simon Doyle.
The second part of the book took place in Egypt with Linnet and Simon on their honeymoon and who should appear but Jacqueline. She had been following the new couple who had met and married within only a couple of months. Jaqueline was justifiably very upset and angry.
Poirot was just having a lovely little holiday when he was approached by Linnet to force Jacqueline to leave the couple alone. He pointed out that no laws had been broken causing Linnet to be a bit miffed at having to face the consequences of her actions.
All of the characters then went on a delightful cruise down the Nile. Delightful until a murder happened, then additional murders happened. Poirot has never been able to have a holiday as whenever he travels, he is brought in to investigate a crime.
It turned out that it wasn’t just Jacqueline who had motive to harm Linnet. The boat was filled with people who had very strong motives for wishing to do away with the heiress. I absolutely loved the sheer volume of suspects as there was so much for Poirot to investigate and he really got a chance to shine! This book really let Poirot display his skills.
This was sort of a locked room Murder mystery since the culprit was someone who was and remained on the boat. I absolutely love mysteries like this, my preferred is usually a grand home but I’ll take a boat!
The book was filled with red herrings which added an extra element of enjoyment in trying to work out what was relevant to the murder and what was rated to a different crime.
The twist in this book was one of my favourites. I knew it was coming because I’ve enjoyed this book before. Yet while rereading this book, I never see any hints or signs that it’s coming and I think that Agatha Christie was just so clever with this book.
I absolutely adored this book and I will always recommend it. The beauty of Agatha Christie is that the books all work wonderfully as standalone books, this is one of the books that I always recommend to people wanting to start reading Agatha Christie but unsure where to start.
After reading the book for the…I don’t know how many times I’ve read this book. A lot. Anyway, I decided to go to see the new adaptation despite having a few concerns after viewing the trailers. I had a lot of feelings which are in the blog below, where I chat about the book and the film (the description on YouTube has the time to skip to if you only want to hear about the film. Spoiler free of course)
Kapowski Reads 
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