It's morally wrong to discuss the plot of any Agatha Christie book, so I will only analyze the first page. And the cover, which supports my theory that the illustrations on all Agatha Christie books are ugly. One is tempted to believe that Agatha herself supervised these monotonous drawings, so they wouldn't rival her writing.

This book was published in 1956 -- that's another subject I can discuss -- and was dedicated to Sybil Burnett, who sounds like a friend of Agatha's. At some point, Christie became rich and could afford to travel. Also, come to think of it, her husband was an archaeologist. There's a great Italian archaeologist named Richetti in Death on the Nile. And sage little Egyptological data like "a remote spot called Semna... where there was a stele recording the fact that on entering Egypt Negroes must pay customs duties." In a sense, the book is a response to the history of ancient Egypt.

Back to the first page. The book begins with the name Linnet Ridgway, spoken aloud, by an unidentified rural observer. Just her name, that's the whole sentence. And what a name! Agatha is stellar at inventing half-satirical names, which are also lovely. Are there real people named Linnet? (And were there in 1956?)

"A big scarlet Rolls-Royce had just stopped in front of the local post office."

Not a bad sentence. "Scarlet Rolls-Royce" is a formulation I have never seen -- good for a mystery novel, which is ultimately about the BLOOD inside humans.