Tangled Web UK Review April 1999
Appointment with Death by
Agatha Christie
pbk out June 01
(HarperCollins)
at £5.99
Although this book dates from Christie's most prolific, and arguably most
successful period as a creator of classic detective puzzles, it is in some
respects untypical of her work. By her standards, it is an ambitious novel.
Whilst the Middle East is a setting she used regularly in the pre-war
years, she made rather more effort than usual to evoke the atmosphere of
the "rose red city" of Petra in which most of the action takes place,
following early scenes in Jerusalem - although she never falls into the
same trap as so many writers who set their books in tourist destinations
and produce something akin to a travelogue rather than a novel. Moreover,
she created perhaps her most memorably unpleasant victim, in the sadistic
matriarch Mrs Boynton as well as an entertainingly awful female politician,
Lady Westholme (said to have been based on Nancy Astor.) The mechanics of
the murder plot are elaborately conceived, and the rather gloomy atmosphere
is relieved by occasional touches of humour, as when Poirot gravely writes
out a list of suitably cryptic "significant points" at the request of
Colonel Carbury, who is in charge of the investigation and is an avowed
enthusiast for detective stories.
Yet it must be said that despite its various strengths, "Appointment With
Death" does not rank with Christie's best work. The portrayal of the
oppressed members of the Boynton family is not quite as convincing in
psychological terms as Christie evidently hoped; they come across as a
sorry bunch. Even worse, the solution to the puzzle is a serious
disappointment. Poirot's analysis of the case is tediously protracted and
the explanation for the culprit's motive deeply unsatisfying, not least
because Christie fails to provide sufficient clues to it - an unwelcome
lapse from the standards of "fair play" with the reader to which she
usually strove to adhere.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
New Books by Agatha Christie at Amazon.co.uk
Secondhand and Out of Print Books by Agatha Christie at Alibris.com
