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Poirot eventually realizes that Salome Otterbourne is a secret alcoholic, and what Rosalie was throwing overboard was her mother's hidden cache of spirits. Rosalie admits this but firmly denies seeing anyone leaving Linnet's cabin on the night of the murder. Now before you get the cheese grater and the lemon juice out for me, let me say that this is my first Agatha Christie novel and my first experience with Monsieur Poirot. I have no idea whether I started with the wrong book or whether my initial impression of HP will soften as I read more. At times he was just fine but there were moments when he was so full of himself that I wanted to tie him down and beat him with his own ego. In a later review, Robert Barnard wrote that this novel is "One of the top ten, in spite of an overcomplex solution. The familiar marital triangle, set on a Nile steamer." The weakness is that there is "Comparatively little local colour, but some good grotesques among the passengers – of which the film took advantage." He notes a change in Christie's novels with this plot published in 1937, as "Spies and agitators are beginning to invade the pure Christie detective story at this period, as the slide towards war begins." [8] References to other works [ edit ] The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The action takes place in Egypt, mostly on the River Nile. The novel is unrelated to Christie's earlier short story of the same name, which featured Parker Pyne as the detective.Linnet had recently married her friend's fiancé, Simon Doyle, which has made Jacqueline bitterly resentful of her. Poirot refuses the request, but attempts unsuccessfully to dissuade Jacqueline from pursuing her plans further. Simon and Linnet secretly board the steamer Karnak, set to tour along the Nile, to escape her, but find she had learned of their plans and boarded ahead of them. Poirot does his Poirot thing and it seems anybody could have killed Linnet, but fingers soon point to Linnet's godmother Marie Van Schuyler (Jennifer Saunders) after the gun is recovered from the ocean floor wrapped in Marie's scarf. First released on November 1st, 1937, Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile is considered one of her finest novels spanning a long and illustrious career as a mystery writer. Death on the Nile marks the 18th of Christie's Hercule Poirot novels and sees the titular detective deduce a series of murders aboard the Karnak as it travels down the river Nile. In addition to Branagh's retelling, Death on the Nile has received several other adaptations, including John Guillermin's dazzling 1978 film, a BBC radio adaptation, a graphic novel, and even a sleuth-themed video game.

two bottles of nail polish in Linnet's room, one labeled "Cardinal" (a deep, dark red) and the other "Rose" (pale pink), but the one that was supposed to be pink had only some drops of bright red ink; About to reveal the identity of the murderer, Poirot credits the experience recounted in Murder in Mesopotamia with developing his methods in detection. He muses: "Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition—and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. This is what I have been seeking to do—clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth..." Do people interest you too, Monsieur Poirot? Or do you reserve your interest for potential criminals?" Literary Notes," The Philadelphia Enquirer, 22 Jan 1938, 12 - "Agatha Christie's 'Death on the Nile,' the latest adventure of Hercule Poirot, is scheduled for American release on Feb. 7." The steamer continues to its ultimate destination of Wadi Halfa, where Poirot’s old acquaintance Colonel Race comes aboard. Race says that he is looking for a political agitator who is responsible for several murders and that he has good intelligence that this person will be on the Karnak. The steamer begins its return journey.

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But these xenophobic caricatures are nothing compared to the way the Middle East is represented in her books – its inhabitants are frequently depicted in the most dehumanising terms, such as in Death on the Nile, where she describes a group of merchants as a "human cluster of flies". Anti-Semitism is equally prevalent in her books from her very first novel in 1916, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which features a character called Dr Bauerstein whose Jewishness is emphasised as a point of suspicion. Naidu thinks so: "while the effect of [these changes] may be to update or 'recuperate' Christie's original text," she says, "in the process, verisimilitude is sacrificed, and as with Poirot's aphoristic pronouncements on the nature of justice, these [characters'] comments appear too obviously stage-managed and hollow." Similarly, it might be said, Death on the Nile is content to highlight racism in one particular instance, while shying away from showing bigotry on a more endemic level. When Poirot meets Race, Christie writes: "Hercule Poirot had come across Colonel Race a year previously in London. They had been fellow-guests at a very strange dinner party--a dinner party that had ended in death for that strange man, their host." It is a reference to the novel Cards on the Table.

Louise Bourget is interviewed in Dr. Bessner's cabin, while Bessner is ministering to Simon. She says she saw nothing on the night of the murder but would have done "if" she had left her cabin. This choice of words sounds strange to Poirot. When Poirot meets Race, Christie writes: "Hercule Poirot had come across Colonel Race a year previously in London. They had been fellow-guests at a very strange dinner party—a dinner party that had ended in death for that strange man, their host." It refers to the novel Cards on the Table.Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world. Robert Barnard: "One of the top ten, in spite of an overcomplex solution. The familiar marital triangle, set on a Nile steamer. Comparatively little local colour, but some good grotesques among the passengers – of which the film took advantage. Spies and agitators are beginning to invade the pure Christie detective story at this period, as the slide towards war begins." Poirot and Race then confront Tim—Poirot reveals that he knows that Tim stole the pearls as part of a jewelry-forging and theft scheme with his cousin, Joanna Southwood. Joana had earlier provided him with the fake pearls by mailing them to him in a cut-out book, and Tim had then swapped the fake pears with the real ones. Poirot gives Tim a chance to return the real pearls before anyone goes searching for them and Tim, who has recently fallen in love with Rosalie, eagerly accepts. Later, after hearing more about the telegram from Signor Richetti that Linnet mistakenly read, Race realizes that Richetti is the agitator he’s looking for. The only other notable change is that it's red polish that Simon fakes his injury with, and Poirot solves this part of the crime by noticing two bottles of nail polish in Linnet's room. In the movie, it's because Euphemia paints her son in a green coat on her canvas because her red paint has gone missing. Jacqueline De Bellefort and Simon Doyle are crazy about each other and ready to start their life together.

Andrew Pennington admits that he has speculated, illegally, with Linnet's holdings; he was hoping to replace the funds before she came of age, but upon her marriage she gained full control of her estate; on learning of her marriage, Pennington rushed to Egypt to stage a "chance" encounter with Linnet and dupe her into signing legal documents that would exculpate him; he abandoned the plan when he found that Linnet was a shrewd woman who read anything she was asked to sign in detail; in desperation, he tried to kill her by dropping the boulder on her, but that is as far as he went, and he swears that he did not murder her; Fanthorp is revealed to be a young attorney with Linnet's British solicitors, who sent him to Egypt to spy on Pennington, suspicious of his intentions; Death on the Nile was released by HarperCollins as a graphic novel adaptation on 16 July 2007, adapted by François Rivière and Solidor ( Jean-François Miniac) ( ISBN 0-00-725058-4). This was translated from the edition first published in France by Emmanuel Proust éditions in 2003 under the title of Mort sur le Nil. Upon turning twenty one, Linnet Ridgeway stands to inherit her father's fortune. Meanwhile her best childhood friend Jacqueline de Belleforte has come upon hard times during the worldwide depression. Her fiancé Simon Doyle is out of work, and the couple seek out Ridgeway in hopes that she is able to assist one or both of them in finding work. Then the unthinkable happens: Ridgeway desires Doyle for herself and steals him away from de Belleforte. They travel to Cairo for their honeymoon, with de Belleforte closely stalking their every move.In late 1926, Agatha's husband, Archie, revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 8 December 1926 the couple quarreled, and Archie Christie left their house, Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public, many of whom were admirers of her novels. Despite a massive manhunt, she was not found for eleven days. Performing is the word, though – for as it transpires, Hardman is revealed to be a detective only pretending to be a white supremacist for investigative purposes, and subsequently apologises for his racism. Elsewhere, characters comment on the race laws in the US, growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and general feelings of xenophobia against anyone deemed "different" in a way that is critical. The question is: is this a case of the film pulling its punches when it comes to racism – raising the issue but then making its white characters inauthentically enlightened and so, given what we know about the prevalence of racist attitudes in the 1930s, letting them off the hook – to the greater comfort of white audiences, perhaps?