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Re-read 26.09.2017 From 2 to 4 stars.
A person is murdered, although it's seemingly impossible, because it's done under the watchful eye of several people - my favorite kind of murder.
The identity of the murderer isn't actually a huge surprise, nor is the basic idea of the execution of the murder (it's very simple if you think about it), but a couple of things surrounding the latter poisoning incident and the way it was done are. The moral of the story is the classic "don't take anyone's word for it", and it's actually surprising that a certain statement wasn't verified immediately. The most successful aspect of Sparkling Cyanide is, however, Christie's characterization. All the people involved (except the investigators) feel alive with all their faults and grievances. Human.
I don't know why I gave this 2 stars originally, but it's possible it was an audiobook and the book itself got blamed if I got bored, or maybe I didn't appreciate the lengthy background portion dealing with each of the suspects. In any case, their stories are crucial. I do think that not only is this an unusual Colonel Race novel (like Superintendent Battle, not my favorite investigator, but I got a slightly better sense of who he is than I did of Battle), but also an unusual Christie novel in a broader sense, because the case is solved by someone else than the main investigator.
A person is murdered, although it's seemingly impossible, because it's done under the watchful eye of several people - my favorite kind of murder.
The identity of the murderer isn't actually a huge surprise, nor is the basic idea of the execution of the murder (it's very simple if you think about it), but a couple of things surrounding the latter poisoning incident and the way it was done are. The moral of the story is the classic "don't take anyone's word for it", and it's actually surprising that a certain statement wasn't verified immediately. The most successful aspect of Sparkling Cyanide is, however, Christie's characterization. All the people involved (except the investigators) feel alive with all their faults and grievances. Human.
I don't know why I gave this 2 stars originally, but it's possible it was an audiobook and the book itself got blamed if I got bored, or maybe I didn't appreciate the lengthy background portion dealing with each of the suspects. In any case, their stories are crucial. I do think that not only is this an unusual Colonel Race novel (like Superintendent Battle, not my favorite investigator, but I got a slightly better sense of who he is than I did of Battle), but also an unusual Christie novel in a broader sense, because the case is solved by someone else than the main investigator.
Re-read 01.09.2017 From 3 to 4 stars.
The first book I read from Christie was The Big Four (1927), but starting from that was a huge mistake, because it's vastly different from the usual Poirots. Luckily, Death on the Nile was next in line, and it confirmed once and for all that my time wouldn't be misspent reading Christie, just like it wasn't misspent watching the television adaptations for a long time before I moved on to her books.
The plot of Death on the Nile is the only one I can remember vividly, in part because the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation is one of my favorites, so I've seen it several times. After nine years, the plot seems even more brilliant than the last time (not to mention that I really love how the novel is set in Egypt). It's the ultimate concept of presuming something is true just because it looks like it is, but we all know how one can't trust anything Christie shows us.
When you know the murderer and the role of each passenger, it's also interesting to spot all the details where one can actually get an idea who the culprit is. As always, though, the details might not be hidden between the lines, but they're definitely obfuscated enough so that it becomes extremely hard to see the true meaning of certain scenes or words.
Sidenote: I've recently decided to start collecting certain books from certain publishers (like Hodder's Stephen King paperbacks and classics in Everyman's Library editions), because I feel like my money is better spent on carefully selected books than impulse purchases, and Death on the Nile has the honor of being the first of HarperCollins's Agatha Christie facsimile editions on my shelf. Very pretty, I have to say, and I'll be posting about it on Instagram later today.
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10/09/2008 I should have known I like Christie because her stories are just simply wonderful old-fashioned crime puzzles that make you turn the pages and sigh when everything's finished. There's not much action or focusing to the crime solver's personal life which is fantastic and in a lot of ways works better than the plots of formulaic contemporary crime novels. Also, the time in which the murders are set is part of the appeal to me. For a long time I've adored the tv movies because you could actually see the lovely costumes and the stories came to life. Now I'm really pleased to have finally decided to read the original books.
You might also want to try one of my favourite games, the [b:Orient Express|16304|Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10)|Agatha Christie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388267702s/16304.jpg|2285570] board game if you want to train your "grey brain cells" like Poirot.
The first book I read from Christie was The Big Four (1927), but starting from that was a huge mistake, because it's vastly different from the usual Poirots. Luckily, Death on the Nile was next in line, and it confirmed once and for all that my time wouldn't be misspent reading Christie, just like it wasn't misspent watching the television adaptations for a long time before I moved on to her books.
The plot of Death on the Nile is the only one I can remember vividly, in part because the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation is one of my favorites, so I've seen it several times. After nine years, the plot seems even more brilliant than the last time (not to mention that I really love how the novel is set in Egypt). It's the ultimate concept of presuming something is true just because it looks like it is, but we all know how one can't trust anything Christie shows us.
When you know the murderer and the role of each passenger, it's also interesting to spot all the details where one can actually get an idea who the culprit is. As always, though, the details might not be hidden between the lines, but they're definitely obfuscated enough so that it becomes extremely hard to see the true meaning of certain scenes or words.
Sidenote: I've recently decided to start collecting certain books from certain publishers (like Hodder's Stephen King paperbacks and classics in Everyman's Library editions), because I feel like my money is better spent on carefully selected books than impulse purchases, and Death on the Nile has the honor of being the first of HarperCollins's Agatha Christie facsimile editions on my shelf. Very pretty, I have to say, and I'll be posting about it on Instagram later today.
- - -
10/09/2008 I should have known I like Christie because her stories are just simply wonderful old-fashioned crime puzzles that make you turn the pages and sigh when everything's finished. There's not much action or focusing to the crime solver's personal life which is fantastic and in a lot of ways works better than the plots of formulaic contemporary crime novels. Also, the time in which the murders are set is part of the appeal to me. For a long time I've adored the tv movies because you could actually see the lovely costumes and the stories came to life. Now I'm really pleased to have finally decided to read the original books.
You might also want to try one of my favourite games, the [b:Orient Express|16304|Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10)|Agatha Christie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388267702s/16304.jpg|2285570] board game if you want to train your "grey brain cells" like Poirot.
