Appointment with Death, Agatha Christie

The Book

    While traveling through the Middle East Hercule Poirot is drawn into the mysterious death of the manipulative old lady, Mrs. Boynton and her family. They hail from America, and are quite miserable as they help this frail old lady on one last adventure. They all hope to inherit her vast fortune upon her death. 

Dr. Sarah King, finds herself attracted to Raymond Boynton, the youngest of the brothers. And so, when it looks like he might be guilty covers for him.

Dr. Gerard is the one who thinks it's murder because he believes some of his medical supplies were stolen, but he can't be sure because on the day in question he was feverish from about of malaria. 

In addition to the family, there are others who may want the old lady dead, among them Jonathan Cope, who is in love with Mrs. Boynton's daughter-in-law, and various other people she has abused in her travels to date. 

With a list of suspects a mile long, and no real satisfactory answers, the British magistrate, Colonel Carbury, is upset. He asks his friend Hercule Poirot for help. It takes Poirot a little over a day to suss out the truth. With all of the twists and turns to be expected from an Agatha Christie Tale. 

My Thoughts

    For whatever reason, this book felt like a slog to read. The puzzle is fine, and actually, although I didn't deduce the character that did it, I was pretty dang close. The thing about this book that I found the most interesting was the way the Mideast was named. We have the Mandate of Palestine and Transjordan as appearances. In the history of the world these entities only existed for a flash. They were formed. by treaty, at the end of WWI and ceased to exist at the end of WWII, becoming a part of the British Commonwealth, and then, in the 50s their own countries outright. 

    Although I agree with the critique of this book that places are described a bit like a travel brochure, and therefore the atmosphere does not blend seamlessly into the story, this is an insight into what that part of the world was like in the "between years". Christie may leave an erroneous impression of the region, of it being a bit less civilized than it was, bits of the culture of the age left out, but the interactions, although sometimes dismissive of the local populace does show some of the tensions of the day. 

    There are those who argue that the anti-Semitic dragoman (a Palestinian local) shows Christie's own anti-Semitism. And while I am not going to argue against that, I also believe these feelings could have very real among the locals Christie encountered. While the modern us, those of us who sit comfortably in Western countries, may blame the Israel of today for their bad acts, or may believe that the Palestinians were wrongly uprooted, and place this to a more modern iteration of Jewish immigration to their homeland, this is, like many things in Western world, to recent. The wave of Jewish migration started well before the end of WWII, and in fact, well before the end of WWI. It started in the late 1800s, just as the Ottoman Empire's decline began to seriously pick up steam. But the blame of Jews in the inter-war years, was the cause of much Jewish migration. And this book, set in time just as WWII is about to breakout, shows us what these times were like. It was never meant to be an accurate record of what was, but Michael Connelly, without going into the politics of President Trump's first impeachment, does manage to shoehorn it into  his book, contrasting that timeline against the coming of Covid, something in the wake of Covid gets split up in many minds. It's a cultural touchstone. I believe this is what Christie is showing here. Of course she has no way of knowing how Palestine, Jordan, and Israel are going to shake out in a few years, but we do see the world as it was, just weeks before the war will breakout in earnest. 

These books are worth a read for all of us, just so we can see what was going on in those days. 

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

    As you can see, this is yet another of the leatherette editions of my library. I believe that no matter how many of these editions may have existed, at least in my county, my library is the only one where they remain. Certainly when I placed this book on hold, my library was the only one who had a copy of this particular type of copy. It entered my library in 1987. The copyright on the book says July, and the date on the book when I reserved it said only 1987. In these books the date of entry was usually put on the cardholder for the checkout card. But this checkout card looks almost completely unused. Another artifact of how long ago the book was purchased. Despite it's age, this book is in nearly pristine condition, with no corrections, pen or pencil marks, no dog ears. In fact, book fairly crackles, almost like a new book when opened.  A bit of math was needed to get to the bottom of how much this book is listed at in the library system, and I arrive at $9. That's the number I will go with. 

This Book                                                   $9.00

Items Reviewed This Year                    $1038.32

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