Death on the Nile is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 1 November 1937The Observer 31 October 1937 (Page 6) and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year.John Cooper and B.A. Pyke. Detective Fiction – the collector's guide: Second Edition (Pages 82 and 86) Scholar Press. 1994. American Tribute to Agatha Christie The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6)Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)() and the US edition at $2.00 (). The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The action takes place in Egypt, mostly on the River Nile. The novel is unrelated to Christie's earlier (1933) short story of the same name, which featured Parker Pyne as the detective.
Synopsis Hercule Poirot is vacationing in Aswan, waiting to board the steamer Karnak, which will tour along the Nile River from Shellal to Wadi Halfa. He is approached by wealthy heiress Linnet Doyle (née Ridgeway), who attempts to hire him. Linnet has recently married Simon Doyle, ex-fiancé of her former friend Jacqueline de Bellefort. Bitterly jealous, Jacqueline has taken to hounding and stalking the couple all throughout their honeymoon. Correctly suspecting that Linnet deliberately seduced Simon away from Jacqueline, Poirot refuses the commission, but privately makes an attempt to dissuade Jacqueline from "opening her heart to evil".
Simon and Linnet secretly follow Poirot to escape Jacqueline, but find she anticipated this move and boarded the steamer ahead of them. The other passengers include Linnet's maid Louise Bourget; her trustee Andrew Pennington; romance novelist Salome Otterbourne and her daughter Rosalie; young Tim Allerton and his mother; elderly American socialite Marie Van Schuyler, her cousin Cornelia Robson and nurse Miss Bowers; outspoken communist Mr Ferguson; Italian archaeologist Guido Richetti; solicitor Jim Fanthorp; and Austrian physician Dr Bessner.
While visiting Abu Simbel when the Karnak docks there, Linnet narrowly avoids being crushed to death by a large boulder that falls from a cliff. Jacqueline is initially suspected of causing the incident, but it is later discovered she never came ashore. At Wadi Halfa, Poirot's friend Colonel Race boards the Karnak for the return voyage. Race tells Poirot that there may be a secret political agitator among the passengers.
The next night, in the steamer's lounge, Jacqueline consumes several drinks, becomes angry, and shoots at Simon with a pistol. He collapses with a bloody leg, and she immediately becomes hysterical with remorse and kicks the gun away. The two other people present, Fanthorp and Cornelia, take her to her cabin. Simon is shortly brought to Dr Bessner's cabin for treatment for his injury. Fanthorp goes back to look for Jacqueline's pistol, but it has disappeared.
The following morning, Linnet is found dead with a small caliber bullet in her brain, while her valuable string of pearls has disappeared. Jacqueline's pistol is recovered from the Nile; it was wrapped in a velvet stole that Miss Van Schuyler had reported missing the day before. Two shots have been fired from the pistol.
While interviewing Louise in the cabin where Simon is resting, Poirot notes that she seems to be hinting that she knows something, while outwardly denying the fact. Miss Bowers returns what appears to be Linnet's pearl necklace, which Miss Van Schuyler, a kleptomaniac, stole. However, Poirot realises these pearls are imitation. He notes two nail polish bottles in the victim's room, one of which does not smell like polish. Louise is later found stabbed to death in her cabin. Mrs Otterbourne meets with Poirot, Race, and Simon, claiming she saw who killed the maid, to which Simon loudly declares his surprise. Someone outside the cabin shoots Mrs Otterbourne dead before she can say the killer's name.
Poirot soon confronts Pennington over his attempted murder of Linnet by pushing the boulder off the cliff; Pennington had speculated unsuccessfully with her inheritance, and came to Egypt upon learning of her marriage to trick her into signing documents that would exonerate him. However, he claims he did not murder anyone, despite his revolver being used in Mrs Otterbourne's murder. Poirot recovers Linnet's genuine pearls from Tim, whom he exposes as a professional thief. Tim had substituted an imitation string of pearls for the genuine necklace. Meanwhile, Race realizes Richetti is the man he is looking for.
Poirot tells Race, Bessner, and Cornelia that Simon killed Linnet. Jacqueline planned the murder, as the pair are still lovers. When Linnet deliberately tried to seduce Simon into leaving Jacqueline, Simon decided to go along with it so he could murder her for her money and marry Jacqueline later. Afraid of the none-too-bright Simon being caught and executed, Jacqueline concocted what she thought was a foolproof plan. On the night of the murder, Jacqueline deliberately missed Simon, who faked his leg injury with red ink. While Jacqueline distracted Fanthorp and Cornelia, Simon took the pistol, went to Linnet's cabin, and shot her. He placed the nail polish bottle that had contained the red ink on Linnet's washstand, then returned to the lounge and shot himself in the leg. Simon used the stole to silence the pistol, loaded a spare cartridge to make it seem that only two shots were fired, and threw the gun overboard.
Louise had witnessed Simon entering Linnet's cabin that night and hinted at this to Simon when Poirot was interviewing her, planning to blackmail him. Jacqueline, again in an attempt to protect her lover, stabbed Louise to death. Mrs Otterbourne saw Jacqueline entering Louise's cabin; when she went to tell Poirot, Simon had raised his voice to alert Jacqueline in the next room, and she shot Mrs Otterbourne to silence her. Poirot confronts Simon, who confesses. He is arrested, as are Jacqueline and Richetti. As the steamer arrives back in Shellal and the passengers disembark, Jacqueline shoots Simon and herself with another pistol so they may escape the gallows. When pressed, Poirot reveals he had always known she had a second pistol, but had chosen to allow her to take her own life.
Characters Passengers
Hercule Poirot, renowned Belgian private detective Colonel Johnnie Race, Poirot's friend and a Secret Service agent Linnet Doyle (née Ridgeway), wealthy heiress Simon Doyle, Linnet's not very intelligent new husband and former land agent Jacqueline de Bellefort, Linnet's former friend and Simon's ex-fiancée, English-born but raised in South Carolina Mrs Allerton, kind middle-aged passenger who is affectionate to her son Tim Allerton, mistrustful and suspicious son of Mrs Allerton, who prejudices Poirot Andrew Pennington, one of the two shady American trustees of Linnet Doyle Carl Bessner, Austrian physician who serves as the doctor-on-scene during the mystery Mr Ferguson, actually Lord Dawlish, who has become a Communist and renounced his aristocratic heritage James Fanthorp, young solicitor and the nephew of Linnet's English trustee, who is secretly investigating Pennington Guido Richetti, garroulous and hot-tempered Italian archaeologist Louise Bourget, Linnet Doyle's greedy and secretive new maid Fleetwood, engineer on the Karnak, ex-lover of Marie and Louise's predecessor as Linnet's maid Marie Van Schuyler, arrogant and snobbish elderly American socialite, who struggles with kleptomania Miss Bowers, loyal nurse of Miss Van Schuyler, who takes care of her medically while also ensuring her 'idiosyncrasies' do not cause embarrassment Cornelia Robson,A young and impoverished cousin of Miss Van Schuyler, who serves as her companion Salome Otterbourne, flamboyant, sex-obsessed, oft-inebriated author of romance novels Rosalie Otterbourne, unhappy daughter of Mrs. Otterbourne, who unsuccessfully tries to curb her mother's alcoholism
Other characters
Gaston Blondin, proprietor of a restaurant and an acquaintance of Poirot Jules, Maître d'hôtel of a restaurant who works for Monsieur Blondin George Wode, previous owner of Wode Hall, who went bankrupt and sold his house to Linnet Sterndale Rockford, Linnet's other American Trustee and Pennington's business partner Mr Burnaby, pub landlord who gossips about Linnet William Carmichael, uncle of James Fanthorp and Linnet's English solicitor Mr Pierce, Linnet's architect Ned Robson, Cornelia Robson's deceased father, who was almost forced into bankruptcy by Linnet's father Mrs Robson, Cornelia Robson's widowed mother Mrs Leech, acquaintance of Mrs Allerton and Tim, who lost a ring in Mallorca Toby Bryce, acquaintance of Linnet Doyle Lord Charles Windlesham, rejected suitor of Linnet Doyle, said to be too old for her Joanna Southwood, close friend of Linnet Doyle and a distant cousin of the Allertons Leopold Hartz, American millionaire and the deceased maternal grandfather of Linnet Doyle Melhuish Ridgeway, Linnet Doyle's deceased father, whose business deals with his wife's money made him a very wealthy man Anna Ridgeway (née Hartz), Linnet's deceased mother and the only daughter of the millionaire Leopold Hartz Marie, former maid of Linnet Doyle who had an affair with the already-married Fleetwood
Reception
Contemporary reviews of the book were primarily positive. The short review in the Times Literary Supplement concluded by saying, "Hercule Poirot, as usual, digs out a truth so unforeseen that it would be unfair for a reviewer to hint at it."
The Scotsman review of 11 November 1937 finished by saying that "the author has again constructed the neatest of plots, wrapped it round with distracting circumstances, and presented it to what should be an appreciative public."
E. R. Punshon of The Guardian in his review of 10 December 1937 began by saying, "To decide whether a writer of fiction possesses the true novelist's gift it is often a good plan to consider whether the minor characters in his or her book, those to whose creation the author has probably given little thought, stand out in the narrative in their own right as living personalities. This test is one Mrs Christie always passes successfully, and never more so than in her new book."
In a later review, Robert Barnard wrote that this novel is "One of the top ten, in spite of an overcomplex solution. The familiar marital triangle, set on a Nile steamer." The weakness is that there is "Comparatively little local colour, but some good grotesques among the passengers – of which the film took advantage." He notes a change in Christie's novels with this plot published in 1937, as "Spies and agitators are beginning to invade the pure Christie detective story at this period, as the slide towards war begins."
References to other works In Part II, Chapter 11, Miss Van Schuyler mentions to Poirot a common acquaintance, Mr. Rufus Van Aldin, known from The Mystery of the Blue Train. In Part II, Chapter 21, Poirot mentions having found a scarlet kimono in his luggage. This refers to the plot in Murder on the Orient Express. When Poirot meets Race, Christie writes: "Hercule Poirot had come across Colonel Race a year previously in London. They had been fellow-guests at a very strange dinner party—a dinner party that had ended in death for that strange man, their host." It refers to the novel Cards on the Table.