Publication
MacMillan Publishing Company (1992), 296 pages
Collection
Call number
Large Print Fiction C
Physical description
326 p.; 6.75 inches
Status
Available
Call number
Description
Among the towering red cliffs and the ancient ruins of Petra sits the corpse of Mrs. Boynton, the cruel and tyrannizing matriarch of the Boynton family. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist is the only sign of the fatal injection that killed her. With only twenty-four hours to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalls a remark he overheard back in Jerusalem: "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" Mrs. Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he had ever met.
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Media reviews
Lecturalia
Mrs. Boynton es una mujer entrada en años que más que gobernar, esclaviza a sus hijastros ya mayores. Pero ella es la dueña del dinero y, hasta su muerte, todos deberán girar a su alrededor. En el transcurso de un viaje a las ruinas de Petra, los Boynton coinciden con otros viajeros entre los
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que está Poirot. Cuando el grupo vuelve de la excursión, a la que la anciana no ha acudido, la encuentran muerta a la puerta de su tienda. Todos tienen motivos para desear su muerte, todos son sospechosos. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Once again murder disrupts Hercule Poirot's vacation. This time, he's in the Middle East. He first encounters the victim and several suspects in their Jerusalem hotel. Mrs. Boynton is more than just the stereotypical obnoxious American tourist. She's a tyrant who takes pleasure in manipulating the
While some of the plot elements are similar to her other books, Christie adds some different twists. Even though I had read the book before, I had forgotten the culprit's identity, and Christie fooled me this time. The book is full of suspects and red herrings, yet the significant clues were delivered in a way that didn't raise my suspicion. This is a characteristic I take for granted in Christie's mysteries, but it's something a lot of other mystery writers don't manage to do.
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lives of her daughter and step-children. In some ways, it's not a surprise when Mrs. Boynton is murdered during an excursion to Petra. Did she push her children too far? Or could someone else in the party have had a motive for murdering the woman?While some of the plot elements are similar to her other books, Christie adds some different twists. Even though I had read the book before, I had forgotten the culprit's identity, and Christie fooled me this time. The book is full of suspects and red herrings, yet the significant clues were delivered in a way that didn't raise my suspicion. This is a characteristic I take for granted in Christie's mysteries, but it's something a lot of other mystery writers don't manage to do.
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LibraryThing member bookwoman247
Amidst a group that is touring the Middle East is a family, consisting of a malicious, domineering woman, her three adult step-children, her daughter, and her daughter-in-law. The evil old harridan controls every aspect of her children's lives, rarely even allowing them to interact independently
When she is found dead, it is assumed that the trip was too strenuous for her, since she suffered from a "dicky" heart.
The investigating officer feels that there are still questions about the woman's death, and turns to Hercule Poirot, who happens to be in the Middle East, and who also happens to have overheard a very incriminating conversation between two of her children.
The character of the vile old woman was so vivid that I could feel the evil oozing from her! In fact, in my mind's eye I saw her as a nasty, fat, black spider, spinning the web in which she entrapped her children.
This is an example of Christie at her best! I enjoyed it immensely.
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with the outside world.When she is found dead, it is assumed that the trip was too strenuous for her, since she suffered from a "dicky" heart.
The investigating officer feels that there are still questions about the woman's death, and turns to Hercule Poirot, who happens to be in the Middle East, and who also happens to have overheard a very incriminating conversation between two of her children.
The character of the vile old woman was so vivid that I could feel the evil oozing from her! In fact, in my mind's eye I saw her as a nasty, fat, black spider, spinning the web in which she entrapped her children.
This is an example of Christie at her best! I enjoyed it immensely.
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LibraryThing member victorianrose869
June, 2001
Appointment with Death
Agatha Christie
Another one from Grandpa’s paperback collection. Typical Christie fare. Poirot mystery. I usually prefer the “singles”, as I call them, rather than the Miss Marples or Poirots, but this was okay. Poirot is in Jerusalem, some tour thing, and some
Appointment with Death
Agatha Christie
Another one from Grandpa’s paperback collection. Typical Christie fare. Poirot mystery. I usually prefer the “singles”, as I call them, rather than the Miss Marples or Poirots, but this was okay. Poirot is in Jerusalem, some tour thing, and some
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nasty old biddy gets murdered in her tent, or sitting outside of it, rather. Everybody had a reason to kill her, especially her grown children, who she kept under a firm grip financially and emotionally. Christie does excel at that kind of familial desperation - the need to kill to escape. I often wish they’d get away with it! Show Less
LibraryThing member mrtall
Appointment with Death hails from Christie's prime, i.e. the 1930s, and its exotic settings in the middle East are a big plus, too.
Poirot is called to the scene -- Petra -- to investigate the suspicious death of a tyrannical matriarch, whose cowering stepchildren and natural daughter are all
Christie also brings in a couple of characters with medical/psychological background here, and they spend a great deal of the novel dissecting the likelihood that our suspects' deep-seated murderous urges simply grew too powerful to resist. This doesn't make for an action-packed story, but I never found it dull.
Overall, then, this is a good standard Christie. It's not one of her very best, but it's still a delight to read.
Poirot is called to the scene -- Petra -- to investigate the suspicious death of a tyrannical matriarch, whose cowering stepchildren and natural daughter are all
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sympathetic but highly plausible suspects. Christie also brings in a couple of characters with medical/psychological background here, and they spend a great deal of the novel dissecting the likelihood that our suspects' deep-seated murderous urges simply grew too powerful to resist. This doesn't make for an action-packed story, but I never found it dull.
Overall, then, this is a good standard Christie. It's not one of her very best, but it's still a delight to read.
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LibraryThing member Figgles
One of her best. Don't judge it by the TV version which bears almost no relation to the original and contains a great deal of silliness that would've made Agatha very angry indeed. The book has a great deal to say about the nature of evil, and the need for courage in the face of it. Some great
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little riffs that could be called post modern too - reference to DL Sayers "Unnatural death" (1927) (p141 "...I read in a book - an English Detective story...") and Colonel Carbury's request that Poirot make a timetable and a list ("I suppose you couldn't do the things the detective does in books?" p116). Great fun. Just leave out white slaving nuns and the head of John the Baptist - AC was much cleverer than that! Show Less
LibraryThing member Matke
One of my favorite Christies. An absolutely obnoxious victim, an old spider of a woman; an oddball family group to pull suspects from; the red city of Petra as a setting--who could ask for anything more in a relaxing mystery?
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
You could look at Appointment with Death as either an appropriate read, or a totally wrong read for Mother’s Day as it deals with a monstrous mother whose chief joy in life is tormenting her children. In this offering by Agatha Christie we deal with the death of Mrs. Boynton, who along with her
In typical Christie fashion, there’s plenty of suspects, the five remaining Boyntons, all interesting characters on their own, as well as other travellers in the party. A few red herrings help to keep you guessing, but overall, I wasn’t too surprised at the outcome. Perhaps not my favorite Agatha Christie mystery, but certainly an enjoyable read that gives us a fun look at upper class travellers in the 1930’s.
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family is vacationing in the Middle East. Coincidentally, Hercule Poirot is also on vacation and is conveniently on hand to investigate firstly whether a murder did occur, and if so, who is the murderer.In typical Christie fashion, there’s plenty of suspects, the five remaining Boyntons, all interesting characters on their own, as well as other travellers in the party. A few red herrings help to keep you guessing, but overall, I wasn’t too surprised at the outcome. Perhaps not my favorite Agatha Christie mystery, but certainly an enjoyable read that gives us a fun look at upper class travellers in the 1930’s.
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LibraryThing member ccrown
Another of Christie's adventures that keeps you guessing until the very end. A subtle clue is there that makes you think...it could be this one...but, it's so much more obviously THIS one. And, then, of course, it's the one who flitted right through your brain with no more than a second's thought.
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I love that she constantly delights me no matter how jaded I think I am to murder mysteries and no matter that I read these as a teen. Thirty years later they are just as engrossing, just as intriguing---if not more so---and just as satisfying. Show Less
LibraryThing member BookPurring
Shocking ending! Reminiscent of Murder on the Orient Express, but of course enough differences to keep you interested!
LibraryThing member ThothJ
Now I've read both the play and the novel.
LibraryThing member riverwillow
This is one of my favourite Christie novels. I love the idea of setting the murder at Petra of all places and the victim, Mrs Boynton is one of Christie's most psychologically interesting characters and one who very definitely deserves to die.
LibraryThing member davidabrams
Die, Mother, Die!
If anyone ever deserved to die, Mrs. Boynton was it.
This is made chillingly clear to us in the very first sentence of Agatha's 1938 novel Appointment With Death: "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"
The speaker is Mrs. Boynton's stepson, Raymond, and he's making
You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"
The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea.
Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch.
…."Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!" he murmured to himself.
Poirot thinks he's overheard someone rehearsing a play or reading aloud from a book and so he goes to bed, trying to put the remark out of his head.
After that opening scene, Poirot won't show up for another 75 pages. By that time, She has most certainly been killed.
And what of this Mrs. Boynton? Why must she be killed?
As we get deeper into Appointment With Death, it quickly becomes apparent that the lady must die in order to put the rest of her family out of their misery. Fat, lazy and self-indulgent, Mrs. Boynton is surrounded by the fawning members of her family—stepchildren Raymond, Carol, and Lennox; her daughter Ginevra; and Lennox' wife Nadine. Revolving like satellites around the family are other characters: famed French psychoanalyst Dr. Theodore Gerard, young doctor Sarah King, family friend Mr. Cope, social matron Lady Westholme, and her traveling companion Miss Pierce.
But it's the ruling Queen Mother to whom our eye is constantly drawn. Indulge me, if you will, a couple of passages from the novel describing this vicious sack of flesh we call "Mrs. Boynton."
"Heavens!" thought Dr. Gerard, with a Frenchman's candid repulsion. "What a horror of a woman!" Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immovable in the midst of them—a distorted old Buddha—a gross spider in the center of a web!
A few minutes later, as Dr. Gerard continues to observe the odd family tableau with its demanding matriarch giving orders and responding to her minions with mere grunts, he makes this observation:
"What an absurdity of an old tyrant!"
And then, suddenly, the old woman's eyes were full on him, and he drew in his breath sharply. Small, black, smoldering eyes they were, but something came from them—a power, a definite force, a wave of evil malignancy. Dr. Gerard knew something about the power of personality. He realized that here was no spoilt tyrannical invalid indulging petty whims. This old woman was a definite force. In the malignancy of her glare he felt a resemblance to the effect produced by a cobra. Mrs. Boynton might be old, infirm, a prey to disease, but she was not powerless. She was a woman who knew the meaning of power, who had exercised a lifetime of power and who had never once doubted her own force.
Mrs. Boynton reminds me of someone from a horror movie where a mother sadistically dominates her children and isolates them from the rest of the world --Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th or that epitome of matriarchal terror Mommie Dearest. The Boynton family is rich, thanks to the dear departed father Elmer who was a shrewd and well-liked businessman, but you'd never know it by the way Mrs. Boynton tightly knots the purse strings. This trip to the Holy Land seems to be an unusual instance of the adult children being allowed out of the house. Here's how Mr. Cope describes the domestic history to Dr. Gerard:
"Mrs. Boynton shielded these children from the outside world and never let them make any outside contacts. The result of that is that they've grown up—well, kind of nervy. They're jumpy, if you know what I mean. Can't make friends with strangers…She's encouraged them to live at home and not go out and look for jobs….They've none of them got any hobbies. They don't play golf. They don't belong to any country club. They don't go around to dances or do anything with the other young people. They live in a great barrack of a house way down in the country, miles from anywhere. I tell you, Dr. Gerard, it seems all wrong to me."
Later, Dr. Gerard will deliver this armchair analysis about why the family members cannot break the old woman's grip:
"Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock's beak to it. The cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since they were children. She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her….She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison door stood open they would no longer notice!....They would all be afraid of freedom."
In that first opening scene when Carol asks Raymond if he thinks killing their stepmother would be morally wrong, he replies, "No. I think it's just like killing a mad dog—something that's doing harm in the world and must be stopped. This is the only way of stopping it."
Eventually, Mrs. Boynton is stopped—when her black heart suddenly ceases to beat as she's sitting on a perch overlooking a campsite at Petra while on a tour to the holy site. All throughout the camp, there is a feeling of relief that the old lady's grip has finally been loosened. At first, it seems that Mrs. Boynton died of natural causes, but then little suspicions start to build as more details come to light—a hypodermic needle is missing, along with a bottle of the deadly drug digitoxin; and then someone notices a tiny puncture mark on the stepmother's wrist.
Despite this long build-up about the vividly evil character of Mrs. Boynton, none of it really matters to Poirot during his investigation into her murder. "The moral character of the victim has nothing to do with it! A human being who has exercised the right of private judgment and taken the life of another human being is not safe to exist amongst the community." Mrs. Boynton may have been Hitler's twin sister, but that wouldn't matter one speck to Poirot in his hermetically sanitized world view. There has been a crime and the criminal, no matter how justified, must be held accountable.
The Belgian detective promises to catch the murderer in twenty-four hours or less and he spends the rest of the day interviewing those in the tour group about the events leading up to Her sudden death. Unlike the average Christie mystery, Appointment With Death depends more on psychological profiling than it does physical evidence. As he talks to the family members and others who were there at the Petra camp, Poirot carefully studies their reactions, their verbal tap dances around the truth, their interior psychological makeup. While he doesn't completely dispense with the physical evidence—note the detailed timelines he is always compiling—Poirot is more keenly interested in why Mrs. Boynton was killed than how.
While I applaud Agatha for stretching into new territory, Appointment With Death doesn't possess the usual sprightly zing of her other novels. For my taste, there are far too many pages devoted to psychobabble—especially when you get Dr. Gerard and Sarah King together in the same room—which hang like a millstone around the novel's neck, dragging it down to the watery depths. It's as if Agatha got her hands on some dusty volumes of Freud and/or Jung, and just couldn't wait to share everything she'd learned. While psychology is central to the book—as, indeed, it is to most mystery novels—Agatha just doesn't integrate it seamlessly into the scenes here in the Holy Land.
To continue in my nitpicking rant, I had trouble envisioning the murder scene (the camp the tourists arrive at midway through the plot). As frequent readers of Christie novels can attest, the geography of the murders is important to visualize (at least if you want to keep up with Poirot or Miss Marple). In some cases, an actual floor plan is included in the pages of the book. Sadly, that is not the case here, and we're left trying to visualize the rows of pitched tents, the trail up the mountainside, and the perch at the mouth of the cave where Mrs. Boynton met her end.
In the end, Appointment With Death plods along to its typical Christie denouement and the revelation of a killer, which actually turns out to be rather lackluster. The one thing you'll carry away from the novel, however, is that fascinatingly cruel woman who commandeers events from the center of her selfish universe. Yes, Mrs. Boynton must die, but when she exits the book some of the spark goes along with her.
If anyone ever deserved to die, Mrs. Boynton was it.
This is made chillingly clear to us in the very first sentence of Agatha's 1938 novel Appointment With Death: "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"
The speaker is Mrs. Boynton's stepson, Raymond, and he's making
Show More
that desperate, emphatic statement to his sister Carol while they stand at the window of the King Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem. Unbeknownst to him, there is one other person who heard that declaration of murderous intent: Monsieur Hercule Poirot, who has a room above the Boynton's.You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"
The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea.
Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch.
…."Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!" he murmured to himself.
Poirot thinks he's overheard someone rehearsing a play or reading aloud from a book and so he goes to bed, trying to put the remark out of his head.
After that opening scene, Poirot won't show up for another 75 pages. By that time, She has most certainly been killed.
And what of this Mrs. Boynton? Why must she be killed?
As we get deeper into Appointment With Death, it quickly becomes apparent that the lady must die in order to put the rest of her family out of their misery. Fat, lazy and self-indulgent, Mrs. Boynton is surrounded by the fawning members of her family—stepchildren Raymond, Carol, and Lennox; her daughter Ginevra; and Lennox' wife Nadine. Revolving like satellites around the family are other characters: famed French psychoanalyst Dr. Theodore Gerard, young doctor Sarah King, family friend Mr. Cope, social matron Lady Westholme, and her traveling companion Miss Pierce.
But it's the ruling Queen Mother to whom our eye is constantly drawn. Indulge me, if you will, a couple of passages from the novel describing this vicious sack of flesh we call "Mrs. Boynton."
"Heavens!" thought Dr. Gerard, with a Frenchman's candid repulsion. "What a horror of a woman!" Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immovable in the midst of them—a distorted old Buddha—a gross spider in the center of a web!
A few minutes later, as Dr. Gerard continues to observe the odd family tableau with its demanding matriarch giving orders and responding to her minions with mere grunts, he makes this observation:
"What an absurdity of an old tyrant!"
And then, suddenly, the old woman's eyes were full on him, and he drew in his breath sharply. Small, black, smoldering eyes they were, but something came from them—a power, a definite force, a wave of evil malignancy. Dr. Gerard knew something about the power of personality. He realized that here was no spoilt tyrannical invalid indulging petty whims. This old woman was a definite force. In the malignancy of her glare he felt a resemblance to the effect produced by a cobra. Mrs. Boynton might be old, infirm, a prey to disease, but she was not powerless. She was a woman who knew the meaning of power, who had exercised a lifetime of power and who had never once doubted her own force.
Mrs. Boynton reminds me of someone from a horror movie where a mother sadistically dominates her children and isolates them from the rest of the world --Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th or that epitome of matriarchal terror Mommie Dearest. The Boynton family is rich, thanks to the dear departed father Elmer who was a shrewd and well-liked businessman, but you'd never know it by the way Mrs. Boynton tightly knots the purse strings. This trip to the Holy Land seems to be an unusual instance of the adult children being allowed out of the house. Here's how Mr. Cope describes the domestic history to Dr. Gerard:
"Mrs. Boynton shielded these children from the outside world and never let them make any outside contacts. The result of that is that they've grown up—well, kind of nervy. They're jumpy, if you know what I mean. Can't make friends with strangers…She's encouraged them to live at home and not go out and look for jobs….They've none of them got any hobbies. They don't play golf. They don't belong to any country club. They don't go around to dances or do anything with the other young people. They live in a great barrack of a house way down in the country, miles from anywhere. I tell you, Dr. Gerard, it seems all wrong to me."
Later, Dr. Gerard will deliver this armchair analysis about why the family members cannot break the old woman's grip:
"Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock's beak to it. The cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since they were children. She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her….She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison door stood open they would no longer notice!....They would all be afraid of freedom."
In that first opening scene when Carol asks Raymond if he thinks killing their stepmother would be morally wrong, he replies, "No. I think it's just like killing a mad dog—something that's doing harm in the world and must be stopped. This is the only way of stopping it."
Eventually, Mrs. Boynton is stopped—when her black heart suddenly ceases to beat as she's sitting on a perch overlooking a campsite at Petra while on a tour to the holy site. All throughout the camp, there is a feeling of relief that the old lady's grip has finally been loosened. At first, it seems that Mrs. Boynton died of natural causes, but then little suspicions start to build as more details come to light—a hypodermic needle is missing, along with a bottle of the deadly drug digitoxin; and then someone notices a tiny puncture mark on the stepmother's wrist.
Despite this long build-up about the vividly evil character of Mrs. Boynton, none of it really matters to Poirot during his investigation into her murder. "The moral character of the victim has nothing to do with it! A human being who has exercised the right of private judgment and taken the life of another human being is not safe to exist amongst the community." Mrs. Boynton may have been Hitler's twin sister, but that wouldn't matter one speck to Poirot in his hermetically sanitized world view. There has been a crime and the criminal, no matter how justified, must be held accountable.
The Belgian detective promises to catch the murderer in twenty-four hours or less and he spends the rest of the day interviewing those in the tour group about the events leading up to Her sudden death. Unlike the average Christie mystery, Appointment With Death depends more on psychological profiling than it does physical evidence. As he talks to the family members and others who were there at the Petra camp, Poirot carefully studies their reactions, their verbal tap dances around the truth, their interior psychological makeup. While he doesn't completely dispense with the physical evidence—note the detailed timelines he is always compiling—Poirot is more keenly interested in why Mrs. Boynton was killed than how.
While I applaud Agatha for stretching into new territory, Appointment With Death doesn't possess the usual sprightly zing of her other novels. For my taste, there are far too many pages devoted to psychobabble—especially when you get Dr. Gerard and Sarah King together in the same room—which hang like a millstone around the novel's neck, dragging it down to the watery depths. It's as if Agatha got her hands on some dusty volumes of Freud and/or Jung, and just couldn't wait to share everything she'd learned. While psychology is central to the book—as, indeed, it is to most mystery novels—Agatha just doesn't integrate it seamlessly into the scenes here in the Holy Land.
To continue in my nitpicking rant, I had trouble envisioning the murder scene (the camp the tourists arrive at midway through the plot). As frequent readers of Christie novels can attest, the geography of the murders is important to visualize (at least if you want to keep up with Poirot or Miss Marple). In some cases, an actual floor plan is included in the pages of the book. Sadly, that is not the case here, and we're left trying to visualize the rows of pitched tents, the trail up the mountainside, and the perch at the mouth of the cave where Mrs. Boynton met her end.
In the end, Appointment With Death plods along to its typical Christie denouement and the revelation of a killer, which actually turns out to be rather lackluster. The one thing you'll carry away from the novel, however, is that fascinatingly cruel woman who commandeers events from the center of her selfish universe. Yes, Mrs. Boynton must die, but when she exits the book some of the spark goes along with her.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
On Dec 29, 1945, I siad: "Today I finished a mystery - then the mail came: three Chicago Suns, the Commonweal, abd The Messenager, which had all about the four new Ameican Cardinals" Not a word about what I thought of this book!
LibraryThing member RubyScarlett
One of her best, I find, mostly due to how rich the characterization is and how good of a villain Mrs Boynton is. I also really enjoyed the epilogue and I think if any book deserved an epilogue so the reader knows the characters end up okay, it was this. The only thing that bothers me is that
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Poirot dismisses the idea of letting the culprit get away with it even though he did it in Orient Express and in my opinion they're both as evil. Orient Express is my favourite Christie so far and it's also due to the fact that the murder questions Poirot's values so much - he had no good reason to pursue the investigation here seeing as Mrs Boynton is an absolute sadist and I for one would have liked more consistency on his part. Regardless, it's a really good mystery. Show Less
LibraryThing member DebbieMcCauley
Number 19 in the Hercule Poirot series and first published in 1938. The tyrannical Mrs Boynton has a great hold over her family which many witness during a holiday to The Holy Land. When the sadistic woman and former prison warden is seemingly murdered, Belgian detective Poirot interrupts his
A good read with a twist at the end.
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vacation to take on the case. The book examines the psychology of the warped Boynton family. Her other characters include Lady Westholme (imperious MP), Dr.Gerard (French doctor), Miss Pierce (scatterbrained goose), Miss Sarah King (newly qualified doctor). A good read with a twist at the end.
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LibraryThing member chevalierdulys
This was not the best book by Agatha. By all means. First of all, Poirot only appears in half the book (100 of 210 pages) and the last 20 pages is the setting as Poirot tells them all how smart he is and how he cracked the murder.
So it seems, not all people had some motifs to kill the Matriach of a
My main problem is that Agatha Christie was getting more and more discontent with Poirot and this book shows it. I understand. This lady as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are two examples that created some powerful characters that are more known than them. Everyone knows who is Sherlock Holmes but I bet that some people don't know who wrote the stories. The same happens with Poirot and Agatha Christie. I understand that this must me a pression to the writer... I really hope the last 10 books of Poirot are better than the last couple ones I read.
This book also had some interesting notions how Christie view the americans, jews or the beduins.
The story itself was quite good. A matriach keeps under her leash four (step)sons/daughters and they all want to leave her. Poirot hears in the beginning of the story two persons saying that "She must die, you understand?" and from that moment on we learn more of the family and several people they met as they travel to israel and arabian penisula. Is quite interesting, don't get me wrong. A psychodrama.
Not the best to start reading Poirot.
So it seems, not all people had some motifs to kill the Matriach of a
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American family and the killer isn't who we are led to believe.My main problem is that Agatha Christie was getting more and more discontent with Poirot and this book shows it. I understand. This lady as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are two examples that created some powerful characters that are more known than them. Everyone knows who is Sherlock Holmes but I bet that some people don't know who wrote the stories. The same happens with Poirot and Agatha Christie. I understand that this must me a pression to the writer... I really hope the last 10 books of Poirot are better than the last couple ones I read.
This book also had some interesting notions how Christie view the americans, jews or the beduins.
The story itself was quite good. A matriach keeps under her leash four (step)sons/daughters and they all want to leave her. Poirot hears in the beginning of the story two persons saying that "She must die, you understand?" and from that moment on we learn more of the family and several people they met as they travel to israel and arabian penisula. Is quite interesting, don't get me wrong. A psychodrama.
Not the best to start reading Poirot.
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LibraryThing member pussreboots
One of the more predictable of the Poirot cases. I had figured out the solution by the halfway point so the second half of the book was a little tedious to read.
LibraryThing member AmphipodGirl
Really 3.5 stars. I had trouble getting into the book at first because I found the character of Mrs. Boynton do creepy and unpleasant, but quite enjoyed it after that. Good ending.
LibraryThing member antiquary
Death of a very unpleasant woman while sitting in a deck chair during a tour of an archaeological site in he Near Eat, Infuenced by Christie's life in the area with her archaeologist husband Max Mallown. There is a good film version. .
LibraryThing member smik
Mrs Boynton's American family are in thrall to her. She dominates their lives like a giant spider and saps their individual wills to rebel. Only one of her family are actually her own child. Three of the remaining are her step children and one of the women is married to her eldest step-son. They
" What a horror of a woman!" Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immoveable in the midsts of them - a distorted old Buddha - a gross spider in the centre of a web!
Onlookers can see the toll that attendance on their mother is taking on the younger members of the Boynton family. They are nervy, drained, and apparently exhausted. What should have been a holiday in Jerusalem and Petra is a constant battle of wills with their mother who controls where they go, what they see, and who they talk to.
By the end of Part I, nearly half way through the novel, Mrs Boynton keeps her appointment with death while visiting Petra. Hercule Poirot had already observed the family in Jerusalem. Just now he is visiting Colonel Carbury in Amman with a letter of introduction from Colonel Race. Mrs Boynton's body is brought to Amman and Carbury invites Poirot to assist him in the investigation.
Hercule Poirot ... the egg-shaped head, the gigantic moustaches, the dandyfied appearance and the suspicious blackness of his hair.
Poirot is fresh from his success in DEATH ON THE NILE. Where Colonel Race was his confidante in that case, Colonel Carbury takes on that role in APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH. Poirot is pretty confident though thta he will be able to solve the puzzle fairly quickly. Carbury says that he is only able to detain the family members and fellow travellers for 24 hours, so Poirot has a limit to the time available to him.
Poirot says he will succeed through
... methodical sifting of the evidence, by a process of reasoning.... And by a study of psychological possibilities.
Carbury is very sceptical of Poirot's ability, but of course, in the end Poirot proves what he said at the beginning.
I am gifted.... I know my own ability.
This is once again an enjoyable read. What strikes you with these novels is that they are relatively short by today's standards. Christie seems to have the ability to put a small world under the microscope, and yet at the same time can supply us with a considerable amount of detail, enough to float a red herring or two.
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are all totally dependent on her for financial support, although they will all inherit a massive fortune equally at her death." What a horror of a woman!" Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immoveable in the midsts of them - a distorted old Buddha - a gross spider in the centre of a web!
Onlookers can see the toll that attendance on their mother is taking on the younger members of the Boynton family. They are nervy, drained, and apparently exhausted. What should have been a holiday in Jerusalem and Petra is a constant battle of wills with their mother who controls where they go, what they see, and who they talk to.
By the end of Part I, nearly half way through the novel, Mrs Boynton keeps her appointment with death while visiting Petra. Hercule Poirot had already observed the family in Jerusalem. Just now he is visiting Colonel Carbury in Amman with a letter of introduction from Colonel Race. Mrs Boynton's body is brought to Amman and Carbury invites Poirot to assist him in the investigation.
Hercule Poirot ... the egg-shaped head, the gigantic moustaches, the dandyfied appearance and the suspicious blackness of his hair.
Poirot is fresh from his success in DEATH ON THE NILE. Where Colonel Race was his confidante in that case, Colonel Carbury takes on that role in APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH. Poirot is pretty confident though thta he will be able to solve the puzzle fairly quickly. Carbury says that he is only able to detain the family members and fellow travellers for 24 hours, so Poirot has a limit to the time available to him.
Poirot says he will succeed through
... methodical sifting of the evidence, by a process of reasoning.... And by a study of psychological possibilities.
Carbury is very sceptical of Poirot's ability, but of course, in the end Poirot proves what he said at the beginning.
I am gifted.... I know my own ability.
This is once again an enjoyable read. What strikes you with these novels is that they are relatively short by today's standards. Christie seems to have the ability to put a small world under the microscope, and yet at the same time can supply us with a considerable amount of detail, enough to float a red herring or two.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ThothJ
Now I've read both the play and the novel.
LibraryThing member AlexTheHunn
This is one of several of Christie's mysteries that show some of the influence of her archeologist husband.
LibraryThing member boredd
I've been wanting to try reading mysteries for a while, and I figured what better way to start than with the 'Queen of Crime' herself, Agatha Christie. I picked this one up on an impulse in the bookstore, mostly because I liked the setting and thought the plot sounded interesting.
In this book,
You can find my full review at Rantings of a Bookworm Couch Potato.
In this book,
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Christie's beloved detective Hercule Poirot is on vacation in Jerusalem, and during his first night's day he overhears part of a conversation in which someone says, "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" Not long after that, Poirot is asked to look into the murder of Mrs. Boynton, the controlling matriarch of her family, who by all accounts is better off dead. Poirot perserveres in his investigation regardless, and in time virtually everyone comes under suspicion for the murder of Mrs. Boynton.You can find my full review at Rantings of a Bookworm Couch Potato.
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LibraryThing member Obi2015
There is not much point in repeating the storyline of this book as every Christie reader knows the story of a horrendous, cruel,terrorising (step)mother and her dysfunctional family. And as this is a Christie, murder must follow . Enter Hercule Poirot, who decides to give Colonel Carbury(a friend
I remember reading it as a young creature and thinking,Petra,wow,it seemed so far away,both in distance as in atmosphere. When years later,I finally visited Petra I was, apart from being mightily impressed, overcome by an acute attack of Christie nostalgia.
How fabulous it must have been,travelling in a small group,sleeping in a cave,having diner overlooking those red,orange and of course, pink cliffs and gazing upon this historical and mythical wonder in the sunset.
This was written in 1938 and it is still highly readable(of course our attitude towards"servants" and the original inhabitants has changed, although not all that much...) but notwithstanding this,and a very soppy epilogue, it is always such good fun reading Agatha Christie.
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of Colonel Race) a helping hand and solve this crime.I remember reading it as a young creature and thinking,Petra,wow,it seemed so far away,both in distance as in atmosphere. When years later,I finally visited Petra I was, apart from being mightily impressed, overcome by an acute attack of Christie nostalgia.
How fabulous it must have been,travelling in a small group,sleeping in a cave,having diner overlooking those red,orange and of course, pink cliffs and gazing upon this historical and mythical wonder in the sunset.
This was written in 1938 and it is still highly readable(of course our attitude towards"servants" and the original inhabitants has changed, although not all that much...) but notwithstanding this,and a very soppy epilogue, it is always such good fun reading Agatha Christie.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Cassandra2020
Another reliable author for a bit of Christmas reading. The interesting thing about this one, is how different it is to the TV adaptation.
Language
Original publication date
1938
ISBN
0816145296 / 9780816145294