Appointment with Death
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Cover artist | Robin Macartney |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
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Publication date
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2 May 1938 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | Death on the Nile |
| Followed by | Hercule Poirot's Christmas |
Appointment with Death is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 May 1938 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and reflects Christie's experiences travelling in the Middle East with her husband, the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan.
Holidaying in Jerusalem, Poirot overhears Raymond Boynton telling his sister, "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" Their stepmother, Mrs Boynton, is a tyrant who dominates her family. When she is found dead on a trip to Petra, Poirot proposes to solve the case in twenty-four hours, even though he has no way of knowing whether it was murder.
The novel opens as the family and the victim are introduced through the perspective of Sarah King and Dr. Gerard, who discuss the behavior of the family. Mrs. Boynton is sadistic and domineering, which she may have inculcated from her original profession: prison warden. Sarah is attracted to Raymond Boynton, while Jefferson Cope admits to wanting to take Nadine Boynton away from her husband, Lennox Boynton, and the influence of her mother-in-law. Having been thwarted in her desire to free the young Boyntons, Sarah confronts Mrs. Boynton whose apparent reply is a strange threat: "I’ve never forgotten anything – not an action, not a name, not a face." When the party reaches Petra, Mrs. Boynton uncharacteristically sends her family away from her for a period. Later, she is found dead with a needle puncture in her wrist.
Poirot claims that he can solve the mystery within twenty-four hours simply by interviewing the suspects. During these interviews he establishes a timeline that seems impossible: Sarah King places the time of death considerably before the times at which various of the family members claim last to have seen the victim alive. Attention is focused on a hypodermic syringe that has seemingly been stolen from Dr. Gerard’s tent and later replaced. The poison administered to the victim is believed to be digitoxin, something that she already took medicinally.
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