Death on the Nile – Book review – 4.5⭐️

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie.
(Published in 1937).

“I’m frightfully – frightfully happy. I like Jackie’s young man… I like him enormously…” And then with a sudden pang, “Lucky Jackie.”

My first encounter with Agatha Christie was when I listened to one of her other Hercule Poirot novels Murder on the Orient Express narrated by Kenneth Branagh.
I liked that story (I rated it 4 out of 5 stars), but not enough to make me immediately want to pick up another one of Christie’s books. But when I found out that Branagh had also recently narrated Death on the Nile, I couldn’t resist.

I will not write a lot about the story itself, given that basically anything and everything can be seen as a spoiler, but as a very brief summary:
Detective Hercule Poirot is on holiday in Egypt and he’s decided to go on a cruise along the Nile. He travels with many fellow passengers, among which the young, beautiful, rich newlywed Linnet Doyle-Ridgeway. When Linnet is shot through the head it is left to Poirot to solve the murder.

Death on the Nile has a lot to offer. Murder, theft, love, hate, betrayal, stalking, jealousy, lies, it’s all there. The plot, characters, and pacing of the story are also sublime and there even are some delicious subplots.

Even though I guessed quite early on in the story who had killed Linnet and why, it was beyond me how it had been done.
You may think that being able to guess the criminal (and motive) means the story isn’t of good quality, but that isn’t the case at all. My guess was merely a guess (not based on a clue I had cleverly detected) that happened to be correct, nothing more, and continuously finding more clues, red herrings, and crimes within crimes as well as figuring out how the murder was committed made it a phenomenal read (or listen, in my case).
And kudos, once again, to Kenneth Branagh for an excellent narration. This was a highly enjoyable listen and it was rather hard for me to take my earphones out.

Overall I have to say that I like Death on the Nile more than Murder on the Orient Express and it made me want to pick up another Hercule Poirot mystery. I chose The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the highest rated of Christie’s crime novels, so stay tuned for its review.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

This review can also be found on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3471548731