Death Comes as the End
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| Recent (1992) edition cover | |
| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Crime, Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Dodd & Mead |
| Released | 1944 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
Death Comes as the End (published in 1944), is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie. It is the only one of Christie's novels not to be set in the 20th century, and - unusually for her - also features no European characters. Instead, the novel is set in Thebes in 2000 BC, a setting for which Christie gained an appreciation of while working with her archaeologist husband, Sir Max Mallowan in the Middle East. The novel is notable for its very high number of deaths and is comparable to And Then There Were None from this standpoint.
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[edit] Plot introduction
The quiet lives of an Egyptian family are disturbed when the father, Imhotep, returns from the North with his new concubine, Nofret, who begins to sow discontent amongst them. Once the deaths begin fears are aroused of a curse upon the house, but is the killer closer to home?
[edit] Plot summary
The novel is primarily written from the perspective of Renisenb, a young widow who is just reacquainting herself with her family when her father brings Nofret into their lives. After he is called away, Nofret presses Kameni and Henet into service as she disrupts and antagonises the family. Satipy and Kait, the wives, attempt to bully Nofret with tricks, but the plan backfires when Nofret appeals to Imhotep and he threatens to throw all his sons and their families out of the household on his return. Suddenly everyone has a motive to kill her and when she is found dead at the foot of a cliff an accident seems unlikely.
The convenient pretence that Nofret has not been murdered is just getting established when Satipy is killed: she is seen apparently to throw herself to her death in terror from the same cliff while walking with Yahmose. Is it Nofret’s vengeful spirit that she was looking at over Yahmose’s shoulder moments before her death? These rumours only gather pace when Yahmose and Sobek drink poisoned wine. Sobek dies, but Yahmose’s recovery seems to be hindered, perhaps by a more insidious slow-acting poison. A boy whose description suggests that he has seen Nofret’s ghost poisoning the wine himself dies of poison shortly afterwards.
Kameni seems to have fallen in love with Renisenb, and eventually asks her to marry him. Unsure whether she loves him or Hori, who she has known since she was a child and he mended her toys, she leaves the choice effectively in her father’s hands and becomes engaged to Kameni. She realises, however, that his relationship with Nofret was closer than she had supposed, and that jealousy may have influenced Nofret’s bitter hatred towards the family.
As Renisenb, Hori and Esa begin to investigate the possibility of a human murderer, the field of suspects is further narrowed when Ipy, himself a likely suspect, is drowned. Esa attempts to flush out the murderer by dropping a hint about the death of Satipy, but is herself murdered by means of an unguent made of poisoned wool fat. Henet – momentarily powerful in the chaos - is smothered in linen.
It is on the same cliff path where Nofret was murdered that the killer makes his final attempt. Renisenb hears footsteps behind her and turns to see a look of murderous hatred in the eyes of her brother, Yahmose. On the brink of her own death, she realises that Satipy was not looking in fear at anything beyond Yahmose … she was looking straight at him. His consumption of the poisoned wine had been cleverly limited, and his recovery deliberately been made to seem less rapid than it was while he committed the later murders.
Even as she realises some of this, Hori slays Yahmose with an arrow and she is saved. Her final choice is which of the scribes to marry: Kameni, a lively husband not unlike her first, or Hori, an older and more enigmatic figure. She makes her choice and falls into Hori’s arms.
[edit] Characters
- Imhotep, a Mortuary Priest
- Nofret, a concubine from the North
- Esa, Imhotep’s mother
- Yahmose, Imhotep’s eldest son
- Satipy, Yahmose’s wife
- Ipy, Imhotep’s youngest son
- Renisenb, Imhotep’s daughter
- Sobek, Imhotep’s second son
- Kait, Sobek’s wife
- Henet, a female retainer
- Hori, the family’s scribe
- Kameni, a scribe from the North
[edit] Trivia
Agatha Christie had written a different ending to this book, but was asked by a friend to change it, which she did but with a lot of sadness.
Christie uses a theme for her chapter titles, as she did for many of her novels, in this case the Egyptian agricultural calendar.
The first part of the novel may have been influenced by the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, where Agamemnon's return home with a concubine prompts his wife to kill them both.
The novel is based on some real letters from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom period from a man called Heqanakhte to his family, complaining about their behaviour and treatment of his concubine.
[edit] Release details
partial list
- 1944, US, Dodd & Mead, Pub date ? ? 1944, hardback (First US edition)
- 1945, UK, The Crime Club Collins, Pub date ? ? 1945, hardback (First UK edition)
- 1992, UK, HarperCollins (ISBN 0-06-100368-9), Pub date ? May 1992, paperback
- 1999, UK, HarperCollins (ISBN 0-00-651377-8), Pub date 1 November 1999, hardback (Poirot omnibus edition)
- 2000, UK, Collins Crime (ISBN 0-00-231099-6), Pub date 2 May 2000, hardback (Agatha Christie Collection series)
- 2001, UK, HarperCollins (ISBN 0-00-712867-3), Pub date 15 October 2001, paperback
- 2004, UK, Macmillan Audio Books (ISBN 1-4050-4641-4), Pub date 3 September 2004, audio book (Audio CD - narrator Jenny Funnell)
- 2006, UK, HarperCollins (ISBN 0-00-721168-6), Pub date 21 August 2006, audio book (Audio CD - narrator Emilia Fox)
