Agatha Christie is the Queen of crime fiction. A superb writer who set the bar for crime, mystery and thriller writers to come such as Dashiell Hammett, Peter James and Brad Thor. The detective novel, Death on the Nile, was published first in 1937 to great acclaim.

Death on the Nile features the Belgian (not French) detective Hercule Poirot. The action occurs in Egypt and mostly on a steamer called the Karnak on the River Nile.

On holiday in Egypt, aboard a boat which is sailing along the Nile on a tour, Hercule Poirot is contacted by socialite Linnet Doyle. Linnet asks that he try to stop Jacqueline de Bellefort from stalking her. Jacqueline was a former friend. Linnet had married Jacqueline’s ex-fiancé, Simon Doyle. Jacqueline had not taken it well. Poirot does not work for Linnet thought he does try to speak to Jacqueline and make her see reason.

One morning, Linnet is found dead. She was shot in the head and her valuable pearls had disappeared. And so starts one of the most famous crime novels ever written. It has elegance, dramatic locations, history and intrigue while being peppered with misdirection. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie is a superb mystery detective fiction novel. Well worth a read.

The novel, Death on the Nile, was made into a film in 1978 starring Peter Ustinov. It was again made into a film starring Kenneth Branagh and was released in 2022.

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