Death on the Nile, the second installment in Kenneth Branagh’s series adapted from Agatha Christie’s renowned detective novels, is currently in theaters much to the delight of whodunit fans. Death on the Nile serves as a sequel to Branagh’s 2017 take on Murder on the Orient Express, with Branagh starring as the eccentric detective Hercule Poirot, this time tasked with solving a murder on a riverboat. But Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile are just two parts of Agatha Christie’s extensive body of work, which amounts to a total of 66 novels. With over two billion copies of her books sold, Christie is noted as the best-selling fiction writer of all time (behind Shakespeare and the Bible, that is), and the most-translated individual author. If you want to know what makes for a good mystery, look no further than any of Christie’s works. Here are five key elements to an Agatha Christie mystery, all of which play out in Death on the Nile.
A World-Class Detective
Hercule Poirot will return to the screen in Death on the Nile to solve a new murder mystery, this time aboard the S.S. Karnak. For those new to Poirot, the Belgian detective is one of Christie’s most popular characters, appearing in about half of her books, and has been portrayed in film and television by a number of actors, including Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Hugh Laurie, Alfred Molina, and currently Kenneth Branagh. Every attention-grabbing series needs a main character to follow, and Poirot acts as an anchor for many of Christie’s works, much in the way that Sherlock Holmes does for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Poirot is an eccentric man, with his prominent mustache and the pocket watch he always carries to ensure he’s punctual. He focuses on solving cases not through physical clues left behind, but by poking at the psychology of both the victims and the suspects. By getting the suspects to open up, Poirot puts the pieces together one by one, using his little grey cells – logical conclusions mixed with a generous amount of intuition – to solve the puzzle with not only the truths he is told along the way, but also with the lies that he sees through. What’s intriguing about Poirot, though, is that he is a sympathetic detective. He doesn’t rely solely on the traditional justice system once the case is solved, and even may provide an alternate telling of events when asked by authorities, so long as some sort of alternative justice is served.
A Stationary Setting
One way many of Christie’s mysteries and their adaptations build suspense is by having the events take place in a single contained environment, whether it be a train car, an island, or, in the case of Death on the Nile, a riverboat. When everyone is stuck in one place without a way of escaping, the tensions between those connected to the central mystery build higher and higher until they reach their crescendo once the mystery is solved and the culprit revealed. With both the guilty and not guilty unable to escape, the likelihood of there being more than one murder committed also increases. It’s like the classic murder-mystery board game (and movie) Clue, which Agatha Christie so clearly influenced: no one can leave the mansion until the mystery is solved, either through clues or a confession, though usually a combination of both.
The location of the mystery remaining constant and unchanging also removes external distractions. The audience can focus more on the characters and their interactions with each other and their environment, picking up on smaller details that might be missed if the setting of the story were to constantly change. There really is no greater conflict than two characters simply being in a room together – or on a boat in the middle of the Nile River – and Christie expertly used this to her advantage to draw in an audience.
A Peek Into High Society
Any Agatha Christie book or movie adaptation is bound to have some aspect of upper-class society to it. Whether it be an elaborate mansion, personal servants among the wealthy and royalty, luxurious trains, or a private boat, a reader or moviegoer is surrounded by spectacle when they step inside Christie’s world. This is no coincidence, either; Christie wrote of what she knew. Agatha Christie herself grew up in the elite English Riviera in a wealthy, upper-middle-class family. She learned to read from a young age, and developed passions in vocal performance, piano, and other high-class social activities. With her family’s expansive means, Christie also frequently traveled throughout her youth and adulthood, including throughout Europe and Egypt, and later to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Canada, and at one point, even boarded the Orient Express for Istanbul and Baghdad.
It’s no surprise that she drew on her own personal experiences and wealthy background. Drawing upon it, she wrote dazzling, but still enticing, stories for everyone, allowing the lower and middle classes a glimpse at far-away destinations and the elaborate scenes of the social elite class and exotic destinations to which they’d never have access. For the average reader or audience member, Agatha’s stories centering on high society adds a level to the spectacle. While we may desire to travel on a luxurious boat for a private wedding celebration with endless glasses of champagne, Agatha Christie’s stories also remind us of the darker underbelly of the upper class. We might not be so inclined to get mixed up in the murderous drama of the socially elite.
Everyone’s A Suspect
Of course, there would be no anticipation in a whodunit without suspects, and they are never in short supply in an Agatha Christie murder mystery. Detective Poirot watches everyone closely and picks up on the motivations and desires at the heart of every suspect. In an Agatha Christie story, almost every character has a reason they may have wanted the murder victim dead, whether it be a spurned lover or a disagreement over a family fortune. Characters are revealed to have intertwining pasts, and sometimes, they might not even be fully aware of just how connected their histories are, which makes it even more enjoyable to connect the dots. Family ties and jealous friends are always put to the test, wondering who may have wronged someone at one point, and with a focus on high society, a desire for money is certainly a motivating factor for anyone. Even servants could be looking for revenge. With a private steamboat full of passengers that are connected to each other in some manner, no one is free to walk away before the case is solved.
When everyone’s a suspect, it leaves not only Poirot and the passengers to put the pieces together until the very end, but the audience as well – and the audience is certainly encouraged to participate in solving the mystery. The suspect is constantly shifting in an Agatha Christie story; the audience is led to believe that one person may have committed the crime one minute, and another person the next. Just as the characters all have their own viewpoint of the tragic events, so does each person sitting in the theater watching the murder mystery unfold. For every one person who has settled on who they believe is the killer, there might be ten different conclusions others sitting in the same theater have drawn. In true Agatha Christie fashion, though, just when Poirot – and the audience watching – thinks they may have figured out the answer, their leading suspect turns up dead and the mystery starts all over again.
Captivating Conclusions
Everyone looks just as guilty as the next person throughout the whole story until everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else. That’s when Poirot gathers those that are left and, at the climactic moment, finally reveals the identity of the true killer – or, in some cases, killers. After successfully digging into the psychology of every suspect, dissecting the witty remarks that unintentionally give them away, and paying attention to the clues left around, Poirot outlines what really happened. A series of diversions – though never so many that it bogs down the story – have the audiences believing the murderer to be one character until their theories are upended by Poirot. The suspense keeps both audiences and fictional characters guessing, with no one certain of anything. But when all the cards are laid out on the table, the answer always seems that it could not have been more obvious, and everything is just as Christie originally envisioned it. Who will have their revenge this time? Who will persuade others in the wrong direction? Only Hercule Poirot (or Miss Marple) is able to figure it out!
Death on the Nile is currently in theaters. Get tickets now.
