Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot #17) by Agatha Christie

  

 My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Clean

The tranquility of a lovely cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life.

Who's also on board? Christie's great detective Hercule Poirot. He recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Despite the exotic setting, nothing is ever quite what it seems…

 

A friend and I have been doing a movie night every week and we decided we wanted to watch the latest movie version of this book—The Kenneth Branagh one that was just recently at the theater. But first we decided we should both read the book, because neither of us had ever read it. This review is not just going to include my thoughts on the book, but also on the movie—actually two movies.

We both borrowed the audio version of the book narrated by Kenneth Branagh and enjoyed it immensely. This book starts off slow. It takes about half the book to set things up, but I wasn't bothered by this. The story and the enjoyable narration sucked me right in and I knew it would eventually pay off. There were two parts in the book that stood out to both my friend and me. One where Poirot talks with Linnet, and admonishes her for making the choice to take the man her friend loves away from her.

“I suggest to you that, although you may have endeavored to gloss over the fact to yourself, you did deliberately set about taking your husband from your friend. I suggest that you felt strongly attracted to him at once. But I suggest that there was a moment when you hesitated, when you realized that there was a choice–that you could refrain or go on. I suggest that the initiative rested with you–not with Monsieur Doyle. … You had everything, Madame, that life can offer. Your friend’s life was bound up in one person. You knew that, but, though you hesitated, you did not hold your hand. You stretched it out and, like the rich man in the Bible, you took the poor man’s one ewe lamb.”  

 

Then there is the part where he talks with Jacqueline and warns her not to go down the path fueled by jealousy and revenge that she is heading down. 

 

“Mademoiselle, I beseech you, do not do what you are doing.” “Leave dear Linnet alone, you mean!” “It is deeper than that. Do not open your heart to evil.” Her lips fell apart; a look of bewilderment came into her eyes. Poirot went on gravely: “Because—if you do—evil will come…Yes, very surely evil will come…It will enter in and make its home within you, and after a little while it will no longer be possible to drive it out.”

They were very poignant for both my friend and me, and we both agreed that these conversations gave us great insight into the character of Poirot and were one of the best parts of the book. I won't say too much about the book. If you've never read it or seen the movies, there are some clever twists added in that, unless you're paying attention to certain details, will take you by surprise. This is why Agatha Christie is considered such a great mystery writer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After reading the book, we did watch the movie, and both of us were very disappointed in it. We both like Kenneth Branagh as Poirot, and I also thought it was a beautiful film, from the scenery, to the costumes, to all the people. It was all beautiful, but that didn't make it a good adaptation of the book. Several characters were completely changed. Some of them were completely cut out and combined into one character. Poirot's friend Bouc from the movie, Murder on the Orient Express is added in and given the role of one of the other characters in the book as well. It also dwelt on adding a backstory to Poirot which I found distracting from the story. And to top everything off, it felt like they were checking boxes to kowtow to people nowadays. I've got no problem with stories that include those things, I just have a problem with messing with a classic to include them. 

And what of those two poignant conversations Poirot has with Linnet and Jacqueline? They were skimmed over so much that they had no impact. Which was sad really, because it seemed that they wanted to show us more of who Poirot was by adding backstory and superimposing it into the original story, but they completely missed the part in the original story that gave us a glimpse of who he was.

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

After being disappointed in this movie version we decided to watch the 1978 version and see how it was. There were lots of great actors in the 1978 version—Betty Davis, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Ustanov, Mia Farrow. This was exciting! In this version there were only one or two characters missing from the book, and they did a good job of adapting the story without them. Angela Lansbury, in particular was a hoot in her role, even though she didn't play it as a closet drunk, but an obvious one, it was a lot of fun watching her. Unfortunately, this movie didn't touch on those poignant conversations that we loved so much enough either. And neither of us thought Peter Ustinov was a very good Poirot, but overall we both liked this movie adaptation better, simply because it was a lot truer to the book.