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    Appointment with Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Appointment with Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Appointment with Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Audiobook5 hours

    Appointment with Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Hugh Fraser

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The unstoppable Hercule Poirot finds himself in the Middle East with only one day to solve a murder in the classic Agatha Christie mystery, Appointment with Death.

     

    Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sits the corpse of Mrs. Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist is the only sign of the fatal injection that killed her.

     

    With only twenty-four hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he’d overheard back in Jerusalem: “You see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?” Mrs. Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he’d ever met. . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062229427
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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    Reviews for Appointment with Death

    4.5/5

    242 ratings41 reviews

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    • 3/5
      On Dec 29, 1945, I siad: "Today I finished a mystery - then the mail came: three Chicago Suns, the Commonweal, abd The Messenager, which had all about the four new Ameican Cardinals" Not a word about what I thought of this book!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Interesting characters in a foreign setting. A character study about human nature that was compelling, it just took a while to get the actual plot in motion.
    • 3/5
      I like Miss Marple more than Poirot, but the full cast audio recordings are quick and great regardless.
    • 5/5
      It’s Agatha so like her and you’ll love
      It’s Hugh Fraser. Always a great performance.
    • 5/5
      Another of Christie's adventures that keeps you guessing until the very end. A subtle clue is there that makes you think...it could be this one...but, it's so much more obviously THIS one. And, then, of course, it's the one who flitted right through your brain with no more than a second's thought. I love that she constantly delights me no matter how jaded I think I am to murder mysteries and no matter that I read these as a teen. Thirty years later they are just as engrossing, just as intriguing---if not more so---and just as satisfying.
    • 4/5
      I thought it might have been Nadine who was the murderer, she had the motive and the knowledge. Then the Dr.Gerald was a close second with what I thought maybe faking a disease of malaria. But Hercule Poirot delivered the verdict with Lady Westhlome and afterward it made much sense. It was a good quick read. Like it.
    • 5/5
      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?
    • 3/5
      Death of a very unpleasant woman while sitting in a deck chair during a tour of an archaeological site in he Near Eat, Infuenced by Christie's life in the area with her archaeologist husband Max Mallown. There is a good film version. .
    • 3/5
      I've been wanting to try reading mysteries for a while, and I figured what better way to start than with the 'Queen of Crime' herself, Agatha Christie. I picked this one up on an impulse in the bookstore, mostly because I liked the setting and thought the plot sounded interesting.In this book, Christie's beloved detective Hercule Poirot is on vacation in Jerusalem, and during his first night's day he overhears part of a conversation in which someone says, "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" Not long after that, Poirot is asked to look into the murder of Mrs. Boynton, the controlling matriarch of her family, who by all accounts is better off dead. Poirot perserveres in his investigation regardless, and in time virtually everyone comes under suspicion for the murder of Mrs. Boynton.You can find my full review at Rantings of a Bookworm Couch Potato.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      Another reliable author for a bit of Christmas reading. The interesting thing about this one, is how different it is to the TV adaptation.
    • 3/5
      Short, but still interesting.
    • 4/5
      Amidst a group that is touring the Middle East is a family, consisting of a malicious, domineering woman, her three adult step-children, her daughter, and her daughter-in-law. The evil old harridan controls every aspect of her children's lives, rarely even allowing them to interact independently with the outside world.When she is found dead, it is assumed that the trip was too strenuous for her, since she suffered from a "dicky" heart.The investigating officer feels that there are still questions about the woman's death, and turns to Hercule Poirot, who happens to be in the Middle East, and who also happens to have overheard a very incriminating conversation between two of her children.The character of the vile old woman was so vivid that I could feel the evil oozing from her! In fact, in my mind's eye I saw her as a nasty, fat, black spider, spinning the web in which she entrapped her children. This is an example of Christie at her best! I enjoyed it immensely.
    • 3/5
      Number 19 in the Hercule Poirot series and first published in 1938. The tyrannical Mrs Boynton has a great hold over her family which many witness during a holiday to The Holy Land. When the sadistic woman and former prison warden is seemingly murdered, Belgian detective Poirot interrupts his vacation to take on the case. The book examines the psychology of the warped Boynton family. Her other characters include Lady Westholme (imperious MP), Dr.Gerard (French doctor), Miss Pierce (scatterbrained goose), Miss Sarah King (newly qualified doctor). A good read with a twist at the end.
    • 3/5
      Die, Mother, Die!If anyone ever deserved to die, Mrs. Boynton was it.This is made chillingly clear to us in the very first sentence of Agatha's 1938 novel Appointment With Death: "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"The speaker is Mrs. Boynton's stepson, Raymond, and he's making that desperate, emphatic statement to his sister Carol while they stand at the window of the King Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem. Unbeknownst to him, there is one other person who heard that declaration of murderous intent: Monsieur Hercule Poirot, who has a room above the Boynton's.You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea.Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch.…."Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!" he murmured to himself.Poirot thinks he's overheard someone rehearsing a play or reading aloud from a book and so he goes to bed, trying to put the remark out of his head.After that opening scene, Poirot won't show up for another 75 pages. By that time, She has most certainly been killed.And what of this Mrs. Boynton? Why must she be killed?As we get deeper into Appointment With Death, it quickly becomes apparent that the lady must die in order to put the rest of her family out of their misery. Fat, lazy and self-indulgent, Mrs. Boynton is surrounded by the fawning members of her family—stepchildren Raymond, Carol, and Lennox; her daughter Ginevra; and Lennox' wife Nadine. Revolving like satellites around the family are other characters: famed French psychoanalyst Dr. Theodore Gerard, young doctor Sarah King, family friend Mr. Cope, social matron Lady Westholme, and her traveling companion Miss Pierce.But it's the ruling Queen Mother to whom our eye is constantly drawn. Indulge me, if you will, a couple of passages from the novel describing this vicious sack of flesh we call "Mrs. Boynton.""Heavens!" thought Dr. Gerard, with a Frenchman's candid repulsion. "What a horror of a woman!" Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immovable in the midst of them—a distorted old Buddha—a gross spider in the center of a web!A few minutes later, as Dr. Gerard continues to observe the odd family tableau with its demanding matriarch giving orders and responding to her minions with mere grunts, he makes this observation:"What an absurdity of an old tyrant!"And then, suddenly, the old woman's eyes were full on him, and he drew in his breath sharply. Small, black, smoldering eyes they were, but something came from them—a power, a definite force, a wave of evil malignancy. Dr. Gerard knew something about the power of personality. He realized that here was no spoilt tyrannical invalid indulging petty whims. This old woman was a definite force. In the malignancy of her glare he felt a resemblance to the effect produced by a cobra. Mrs. Boynton might be old, infirm, a prey to disease, but she was not powerless. She was a woman who knew the meaning of power, who had exercised a lifetime of power and who had never once doubted her own force.Mrs. Boynton reminds me of someone from a horror movie where a mother sadistically dominates her children and isolates them from the rest of the world --Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th or that epitome of matriarchal terror Mommie Dearest. The Boynton family is rich, thanks to the dear departed father Elmer who was a shrewd and well-liked businessman, but you'd never know it by the way Mrs. Boynton tightly knots the purse strings. This trip to the Holy Land seems to be an unusual instance of the adult children being allowed out of the house. Here's how Mr. Cope describes the domestic history to Dr. Gerard:"Mrs. Boynton shielded these children from the outside world and never let them make any outside contacts. The result of that is that they've grown up—well, kind of nervy. They're jumpy, if you know what I mean. Can't make friends with strangers…She's encouraged them to live at home and not go out and look for jobs….They've none of them got any hobbies. They don't play golf. They don't belong to any country club. They don't go around to dances or do anything with the other young people. They live in a great barrack of a house way down in the country, miles from anywhere. I tell you, Dr. Gerard, it seems all wrong to me."Later, Dr. Gerard will deliver this armchair analysis about why the family members cannot break the old woman's grip:"Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock's beak to it. The cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since they were children. She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her….She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison door stood open they would no longer notice!....They would all be afraid of freedom."In that first opening scene when Carol asks Raymond if he thinks killing their stepmother would be morally wrong, he replies, "No. I think it's just like killing a mad dog—something that's doing harm in the world and must be stopped. This is the only way of stopping it."Eventually, Mrs. Boynton is stopped—when her black heart suddenly ceases to beat as she's sitting on a perch overlooking a campsite at Petra while on a tour to the holy site. All throughout the camp, there is a feeling of relief that the old lady's grip has finally been loosened. At first, it seems that Mrs. Boynton died of natural causes, but then little suspicions start to build as more details come to light—a hypodermic needle is missing, along with a bottle of the deadly drug digitoxin; and then someone notices a tiny puncture mark on the stepmother's wrist.Despite this long build-up about the vividly evil character of Mrs. Boynton, none of it really matters to Poirot during his investigation into her murder. "The moral character of the victim has nothing to do with it! A human being who has exercised the right of private judgment and taken the life of another human being is not safe to exist amongst the community." Mrs. Boynton may have been Hitler's twin sister, but that wouldn't matter one speck to Poirot in his hermetically sanitized world view. There has been a crime and the criminal, no matter how justified, must be held accountable.The Belgian detective promises to catch the murderer in twenty-four hours or less and he spends the rest of the day interviewing those in the tour group about the events leading up to Her sudden death. Unlike the average Christie mystery, Appointment With Death depends more on psychological profiling than it does physical evidence. As he talks to the family members and others who were there at the Petra camp, Poirot carefully studies their reactions, their verbal tap dances around the truth, their interior psychological makeup. While he doesn't completely dispense with the physical evidence—note the detailed timelines he is always compiling—Poirot is more keenly interested in why Mrs. Boynton was killed than how.While I applaud Agatha for stretching into new territory, Appointment With Death doesn't possess the usual sprightly zing of her other novels. For my taste, there are far too many pages devoted to psychobabble—especially when you get Dr. Gerard and Sarah King together in the same room—which hang like a millstone around the novel's neck, dragging it down to the watery depths. It's as if Agatha got her hands on some dusty volumes of Freud and/or Jung, and just couldn't wait to share everything she'd learned. While psychology is central to the book—as, indeed, it is to most mystery novels—Agatha just doesn't integrate it seamlessly into the scenes here in the Holy Land.To continue in my nitpicking rant, I had trouble envisioning the murder scene (the camp the tourists arrive at midway through the plot). As frequent readers of Christie novels can attest, the geography of the murders is important to visualize (at least if you want to keep up with Poirot or Miss Marple). In some cases, an actual floor plan is included in the pages of the book. Sadly, that is not the case here, and we're left trying to visualize the rows of pitched tents, the trail up the mountainside, and the perch at the mouth of the cave where Mrs. Boynton met her end.In the end, Appointment With Death plods along to its typical Christie denouement and the revelation of a killer, which actually turns out to be rather lackluster. The one thing you'll carry away from the novel, however, is that fascinatingly cruel woman who commandeers events from the center of her selfish universe. Yes, Mrs. Boynton must die, but when she exits the book some of the spark goes along with her.
    • 4/5
      One of her best, I find, mostly due to how rich the characterization is and how good of a villain Mrs Boynton is. I also really enjoyed the epilogue and I think if any book deserved an epilogue so the reader knows the characters end up okay, it was this. The only thing that bothers me is that Poirot dismisses the idea of letting the culprit get away with it even though he did it in Orient Express and in my opinion they're both as evil. Orient Express is my favourite Christie so far and it's also due to the fact that the murder questions Poirot's values so much - he had no good reason to pursue the investigation here seeing as Mrs Boynton is an absolute sadist and I for one would have liked more consistency on his part. Regardless, it's a really good mystery.
    • 5/5
      Now I've read both the play and the novel.
    • 5/5
      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?
    • 3/5
      In which a tyrannical stepmother dies in Petra.

      Dame Agatha’s love for the Middle East makes "Appointment with Death" come alive. As with "Murder in Mesopotamia", Christie’s portrait of a tour through Jerusalem and Jordan, full of bitter characters and eager explorers, makes for a lively read. The sadistic Mrs. Boynton hovers over the proceedings from beginning to end, energising the psychological study of all the book’s characters. There’s a stylistic letdown, in that the denouement feels like a clever author revealing how each piece was pushed around, rather than a natural discussion arising from the story. (I know this seems like arguing that just one episode of "Two and a Half Men" is inane, lazy comedy, but many of the better Poirot denouements – "Murder on the Orient Express", for instance – at least simmer with tension and surprise. This one feels boastful.) But it doesn’t hamper the novel, nor do the relatively contrived circumstances surrounding the murder.

      "Appointment with Death" was the last of the Peter Ustinov adaptations (although, I confess, I didn’t know he’d filmed it until today!) coming just a year before David Suchet took over the role. Suchet himself recently starred in a lavish adaptation of this, which was far from perfect, but featured beautiful design and some wonderful performances.

      Three-and-a-half stars.

      Poirot ranking: 19th out of 38.
    • 4/5
      June, 2001Appointment with DeathAgatha ChristieAnother one from Grandpa’s paperback collection. Typical Christie fare. Poirot mystery. I usually prefer the “singles”, as I call them, rather than the Miss Marples or Poirots, but this was okay. Poirot is in Jerusalem, some tour thing, and some nasty old biddy gets murdered in her tent, or sitting outside of it, rather. Everybody had a reason to kill her, especially her grown children, who she kept under a firm grip financially and emotionally. Christie does excel at that kind of familial desperation - the need to kill to escape. I often wish they’d get away with it!
    • 3/5
      This was not the best book by Agatha. By all means. First of all, Poirot only appears in half the book (100 of 210 pages) and the last 20 pages is the setting as Poirot tells them all how smart he is and how he cracked the murder.

      So it seems, not all people had some motifs to kill the Matriach of a American family and the killer isn't who we are led to believe.

      My main problem is that Agatha Christie was getting more and more discontent with Poirot and this book shows it. I understand. This lady as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are two examples that created some powerful characters that are more known than them. Everyone knows who is Sherlock Holmes but I bet that some people don't know who wrote the stories. The same happens with Poirot and Agatha Christie. I understand that this must me a pression to the writer... I really hope the last 10 books of Poirot are better than the last couple ones I read.

      This book also had some interesting notions how Christie view the americans, jews or the beduins.

      The story itself was quite good. A matriach keeps under her leash four (step)sons/daughters and they all want to leave her. Poirot hears in the beginning of the story two persons saying that "She must die, you understand?" and from that moment on we learn more of the family and several people they met as they travel to israel and arabian penisula. Is quite interesting, don't get me wrong. A psychodrama.

      Not the best to start reading Poirot.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favourite Christie novels. I love the idea of setting the murder at Petra of all places and the victim, Mrs Boynton is one of Christie's most psychologically interesting characters and one who very definitely deserves to die.
    • 5/5
      4.5*

      "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

      Mrs. Boynton is despised by everyone who meets her. Even her family. All of her children live under her thumb and it is easy to see how her manipulative tyranny make Mrs. Boynton one of the most despicable characters and one of the most deserving victims in any Christie novel.

      Poirot, having once overheard a conversation between two of the Boyton children, is resolved to investigate when a death occurs on a trip to Petra.

      I really enjoyed this mystery. Christie focuses once again on the relationships between the characters and uses psychology to map out what makes those relationship keep intact. There is something compelling about the vile Mrs Boynton as none of the people around her find the strength to tear away from her even though this would ultimately be for their own good. At the same time, Mrs Boyton's sadistic behaviour provides a number of lies and deceptions that make it fun to follow Poirot's investigations and keep guessing the resolution to this mystery.
    • 1/5
      Appointment With Death (1937) (Poirot #19) by Agatha Christie. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. From the start where Poirot just :happens” to accidentally overhear damning evidence to his treatment of the suspects, none of it fit well with me. In a Poirot novel I want the Belgian to be somehow included in the ways and means of the mystery, not brought in at a later time to act as judge of an entire family. And the way he treats everyone involved is pretty revolting.I expect to have more of Poirot throughout the novel, not have him relegated to the second have of the story. The first section is taken up by the victim and her family. She is Mrs. Boynton, a horrible sadist whose victims are the one group of people she should care the most about. Her family, her three step-children and her own daughter, are and have been subject to the most despicable mental torture for their entire lives, Shut away from the world with the old woman out in the country, they never managed to break away from her. For that I find little sympathy for the two boys and the two daughters. Somehow one son has managed to get married, only to have his wife sucked into the old spider’s web.For some reason, not adequately explained in the novel, the entire troupe find themselves away from home for the first time and in Jerusalem of all places. When a side trip to Petra proves fatal to the heart disease ridden old martinet, all the family and several others come under the suspicion of the local police chief. Fortunately for him Poirot just happens to be visiting and decides he will take on the case.But what he really does is continue on with the torture that was supposed to have died with the mother. Poirot seems overly egotistical in this venture, more so than what he appears to present in his other outings. He acts as a hammer with every person within sight substituting for nails. He is brutal to a family that HE KNOWS has been traumatized their entire existence. He touts JUSTICE and then attacks even the youngest member of the clan. I did not like Poirot in this story. I did not care for the backstory, but most disturbing of all is that I did not care for the family involved. What sort of man would not break away from the torture being meted out by the “cruel step-mother” or would get married only to bring his wife into the situation. The only explanation offered is that they have no money to start a different life with and so are dependent upon the mother.Yuck!At first I was sad when Poirot didn’t make a major appearance in this book, and then I found myself wishing he hadn’t been involved at all. It took a week to force myself through this awful story, a sure sign of just how bad it is.Reading this almost made me want to go out and start licking the hand rails that adorn the most used public spaces nearby, not a good thing to do during a Pandemic, but there you have it.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      A psychological thriller as much as a mystery. The deeply controlling Mrs Boynton is one of the most unpleasant and chilling characters I can remember. Set amongst a group of holiday-makers travelling in the Middle East, this has an interesting mixture of people, and some clever plotting.Hercule Poirot asks questions after the crime is committed, about half-way through the book, and ties together his evidence in a way that I don't think I would ever have guessed. I had, of course, spotted several instances in the trail of false clues, and also some of the lies told in the evidence. Recommended if you like this genre of mid-20th century light crime fiction.
    • 3/5
      There were several times that the audio skipped ahead, missing some important parts. Good plot thought
    • 4/5
      You could look at Appointment with Death as either an appropriate read, or a totally wrong read for Mother’s Day as it deals with a monstrous mother whose chief joy in life is tormenting her children. In this offering by Agatha Christie we deal with the death of Mrs. Boynton, who along with her family is vacationing in the Middle East. Coincidentally, Hercule Poirot is also on vacation and is conveniently on hand to investigate firstly whether a murder did occur, and if so, who is the murderer.In typical Christie fashion, there’s plenty of suspects, the five remaining Boyntons, all interesting characters on their own, as well as other travellers in the party. A few red herrings help to keep you guessing, but overall, I wasn’t too surprised at the outcome. Perhaps not my favorite Agatha Christie mystery, but certainly an enjoyable read that gives us a fun look at upper class travellers in the 1930’s.
    • 4/5
      Once again murder disrupts Hercule Poirot's vacation. This time, he's in the Middle East. He first encounters the victim and several suspects in their Jerusalem hotel. Mrs. Boynton is more than just the stereotypical obnoxious American tourist. She's a tyrant who takes pleasure in manipulating the lives of her daughter and step-children. In some ways, it's not a surprise when Mrs. Boynton is murdered during an excursion to Petra. Did she push her children too far? Or could someone else in the party have had a motive for murdering the woman?While some of the plot elements are similar to her other books, Christie adds some different twists. Even though I had read the book before, I had forgotten the culprit's identity, and Christie fooled me this time. The book is full of suspects and red herrings, yet the significant clues were delivered in a way that didn't raise my suspicion. This is a characteristic I take for granted in Christie's mysteries, but it's something a lot of other mystery writers don't manage to do.
    • 4/5
      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!