Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #378412 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

From AudioFile
Between them, Agatha Christie and Emilia Fox manage to make ancient Egyptians sound believable. Christie delivers a tale of deception and murder in an extended family of upper-caste Egyptians of 2000 BC. She includes just enough historically accurate information to ground the story without making it a treatise on how people once lived. Fox wisely chooses not to attempt Egyptian accents. Instead, she reveals social strata by using a range of accents from different English classes; it's a surprising choice that works well. Her pacing is easy to listen to, and she shades character beautifully--rarely have the sniveling sounded so uxorious, the good so innocent, or the murderous so deceiving. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
"Startlingly new... my already insensate admiration for her leaps even higher." Observer "More realistic than many a thriller-writer's idea of London." Evening Standard "A fascinating problem... baffling the most perspicacious reader." Scotsman "A decided novelty -- startling in all directions." Weekly Book Review "As ingenious and baffling as ever." Daily Sketch

Review
"Succeeds admirable in picturing the people of ancient Egypt as living persons and not as resurrected mummies."--The New York Times

Customer Reviews

WILL SOMEONE LET THE WOMAN SPEAK?
This is not the book that Agatha Christie wrote. What "improvements" have been made for the Bantam edition? There were already major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There are further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further additions still in the Signet, Berkley, and Black Dog & Leventhal editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.

It grows on you!
I began this book, but found it slow going. I got as far as the first murder and was going to stop reading. Then I looked up the reviews here and saw the "fun" had just begun. Once it got going it was hard to put down.

It was so different than the usual setting and cast of characters. I did not guess the bad guy at all, but found the end satisfying.

Who Shot (offed) JR (lots of people)?
I thought I had read all the Agatha Christie mysteries many years ago, but DEATH COMES AS THE END seemed unfamiliar and I picked it up. It is an anomaly for Christie, a historical setting and characters, though as she says in an author's note, the plot could be set elsewhere in time and place but she was inspired by artifacts turned up in an Egyptian archeological dig in the early 1920's. In fact, I could easily see the story played out with similar characters in an English baronial manor house in the early 20th century. Or on a Texas ranch in a 1980's American television show.

The plot is vintage Christie, with twists, turns and red herrings galore. It is mostly logical. It takes place in the household of an autocratic ancient Egyptian ka-priest, whose sons vie for power in the family's vast agricultural and commercial holdings. The delicate balance of family interrelationships is knocked off kilter when the widowed patriarch brings home a vixenish concubine, apparently an acceptable practice back when. The female characters range from witchy to ingénue to matriarchal to unctuous servant. If they seem stereotypical some at least have a little psychological resonance and there are faint whiffs of English literary icons ranging from Lady MacBeth and Iago to Uriah Heep. It is refreshing to see the ingénue itch for self possession and independence.

A word about reading Christie again after at least 20 years: I was surprised at how "styleless" her writing style is. Fluent and efficient, yes. But no idiom to distinguish the narrative voice from American English. Perhaps I've been watching too many PBS versions of her work that I expected differently.