One of my favorite Christies. An absolutely obnoxious victim, an old spider of a woman; an oddball family group to pull suspects from; the red city of Petra as a setting--who could ask for anything more in a relaxing mystery? ( )

One of her best. Don't judge it by the TV version which bears almost no relation to the original and contains a great deal of silliness that would've made Agatha very angry indeed. The book has a great deal to say about the nature of evil, and the need for courage in the face of it. Some great little riffs that could be called post modern too - reference to DL Sayers "Unnatural death" (1927) (p141 "...I read in a book - an English Detective story...") and Colonel Carbury's request that Poirot make a timetable and a list ("I suppose you couldn't do the things the detective does in books?" p116). Great fun. Just leave out white slaving nuns and the head of John the Baptist - AC was much cleverer than that! ( )

As stated in another review, I had never read anything by Agatha Christie until I recently picked up several volumes from a remainder table. Appointment With Death was a quick read, the murderer was a surprise, and the siting of the murder at Petra was a real plus. However, having recently read Death on the Nile, I have read more than enough about "voluble dragomen". It seems Christie considered the two words to be inseparable. ( )

Appointment with Death hails from Christie's prime, i.e. the 1930s, and its exotic settings in the middle East are a big plus, too.

Poirot is called to the scene -- Petra -- to investigate the suspicious death of a tyrannical matriarch, whose cowering stepchildren and natural daughter are all sympathetic but highly plausible suspects.

Christie also brings in a couple of characters with medical/psychological background here, and they spend a great deal of the novel dissecting the likelihood that our suspects' deep-seated murderous urges simply grew too powerful to resist. This doesn't make for an action-packed story, but I never found it dull.

Overall, then, this is a good standard Christie. It's not one of her very best, but it's still a delight to read. ( )

This novel is one of the cases in which Poirot investigates psychological manipulation. The invalid Mrs. Boynton travels overseas with her tormented, tightly controlled grown children. When she is murdered, their lives are suddenly and immensely better—but Poirot, supposed to be on vacation, must figure out which, if any, of them killed her. ( )