Death on the Nile is a typical Agatha Christie novel.
It is a
murder mystery with all the ingredients of a thriller. The
novel is set on a luxury steamer and most of the action of the novel
happens on this steamer. The plot of the novel revolves around
the murder of Linnet Ridgeway , a young, rich, newly married lady who
is on a honeymoon to Egypt along with her husband Simon Doyle.
The novel starts with the introduction of Linnet Ridgeway with a
description of opulent lifestyle. Linnet has inherited a huge amount of
wealth from the mother. She is young, vivacious girl, who is quite
confident of herself. She is of the kind who go any lengths to get what
they want. This is evident from the way she literary snatches her best
friend Jacqueline de belleforte's boyfriend from her. This enrages
Jacqueline so much that she swears to revenge her friend. She tries a
novel way of harrasing Linnet, i.e, by following her wherever she goes.
She irratates Linnet so much that Linnet is literally on the verge of a
nervous breakdown, but her husband decides to fight back. But the
story
takes another turn when Linnet is murdered one night. Herecule
Poirot, the Belgian detection takes up the case along with Colonel
Race. Everybody on the boat is under suspicion right from Andrew
Penington to Ms Bowers the hospital nurse. The only person who is free
of suspicion is Simon Doyle, who had been laid up during the time of
the murder. The plot of the novel is simple. The writer succeeds
in creating an ambience which
keeps the reader rivetted to the novel.
More instresting than the unravelling of the mystery killer(which is
actually not unexpected or surprising ) is the way in which the writer
describes the process of
interrogation. Infact it is the way in which
the interrogation is carried that keeps the readers hooked till the
very end of the novel. In all an interesting piece of reading for all mystery lovers.
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