Another Christie mystery! This is the first one I've read after already seeing an adaptation of it. I watched the 2022 movie version of it, enjoyed it, and also immediately wondered how much of it differed from the book. The answer: a fair amount, but very little of the central mystery.
This particular mystery is essentially a travelogue, which make it both extremely fun and also sometimes painful to read because it was written by a British woman in the 1930s who doesn't merely think that imperialism is good, she also wouldn't (or at least doesn't appear to in this book) even consider imperialism to be something that needed to be defended. The British Empire is simply a fact of the world, and one that's uncontroversial and unchallenged. So that makes her descriptions of Egypt and the people who live and work there to be the definition of casually racist, and her presentation of the various suspects and their lives can be uncomfortable at times for similar reasons. However, with that rather strong caveat noted, I still did have a nice time reading it, not least because thinking about adaptation is something I enjoy and there were a number elements to consider from that standpoint. I might recommend the movie instead, though, either the 2022 version or the 1978 one, which is apparently much more faithful to the original story.
Grade: B
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