Much of the first half of the novel is taken up with Christie allowing each character their turn in the spotlight, and the opportunity to say or do something that will look deeply suspicious later on.
For the Egyptian setting, which Christie paints in shades of exotic menace for the great plot, one of her best for the psychologically diverse and well drawn group of characters and most of all for the brooding, malignant presence of Mrs Boynton, a bloated, poisonous spider at the centre of her web, this is a top-rank novel from the pen of the High Queen of Crime.
A bit like with Dickens, my favourite Christie tends to be the one I've just read, and this is no exception. Add in an elderly spinster who's abroad for the first time, an American who's in love with Nadine, a British lady politician who does a good line in bullying on her own account, and the Arab servants, and there's a plentiful supply of suspects and witnesses for Poirot to interview when the inevitable happens. There's also a French psychologist on the trip, Dr Gerrard, and it's through the conversations of the two doctors that Christie lays out the psychology of Mrs Boynton for the readers. Newly qualified as a doctor, she is concerned about what she sees happening to the younger Boyntons. Sarah King provides the main perspective, though in the third person. There are others on the trip too, who will all find themselves involved with the Boyntons in one way or another. But the most troubled member of the family is the youngest, Ginevra, Mrs Boynton's own child, now on the brink of womanhood and driven to the edge of madness by her mother's evil games. Then there are the two younger step-children, Carol and Raymond, who are desperate for freedom but caught like moths in a flame, unable to work out how to escape. Lennox, the eldest, is married to Nadine, the least affected by Mrs Boynton since she wasn't brainwashed in childhood as the others were. Her step-children are all grown up in the physical sense, but have never managed to cut loose from her control. The main group is the Boynton family, a strange and nervy bunch ruled over by their manipulative and sadistic matriarch, Mrs Boynton – one of Christie's greatest creations, in my opinion. After this great start, Poirot recedes into the background for a bit, while the reader is introduced to all the other characters. “You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?” Poirot smilingly dismisses it – they're probably discussing a play, he thinks, or a mystery novel. As he closes his hotel window one evening, he overhears two unidentified characters talking in another room. Poirot is on a little holiday in Egypt, and his poor unsuspecting fellow travellers have no idea that this means one of them, at least, will surely be murdered before the trip is over.
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