HarperCollins Masterpiece Ed., 2010. Book Format: Kindle Edition. File Size: 1,9 MB. Print Length: 273 pages. ASIN: B0046H95SQ. ISBN: 9780007422265. First published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in October 1944 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March of the following year.
As Agatha Christie states in her Author’s Note at the beginning of the novel, the characters and plot of her book are inspired by the Hekanakht papyri, a set of letters written sometime during the XI Dynasty (2.150 – 2.055 BC) on papyrus. These letters were discovered in a tomb near Luxor in the 1920s. They were (partly) translated by Battiscombe Gunn and published in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin in 1922. In the letters, a priest named Hekanakht writes concerning various issues relating to his family including a complaint about the way his family behaved and treated his concubine.
In her An Autobiography, Christie describes in detail the role of the eminent Egyptologist and family family friend Stephen Glanville in the creation of the novel. She records that Glanville literally thrust upon her the idea of a detective novel set in Ancient Egypt. “One day Stephen Glanville attacked me. ‘I’ve got a project I’ve thought out for you'” she writes, adding later: “There is no doubt that I was bullied into it by Stephen”. Glanville leant her severals books on Egypt as source material. He also answered her many and frequent questions on everyday life in Ancient Egypt, details such as what they ate, did men and women eat together, what sort of rooms they slept in. Christie thought Glanville must have been sorry he started her on the project. At one point he noted that what took Christie three minutes to ask, he would have to look through eight different books to find.
Later, Glanville would influence her on the ending of the book. In An Autobiography, Christie recounts that Glanville argued a great deal with her on one point of her denouement and that she gave in to him in the end against her better judgment, something she would later regret. “Up to then, on the whole, though I have given in to people on every subject under the sun, I have never given in to anyone over what I write. ” Years later whenever she re-read the book, she still felt that she would like to rewrite the ending, “which shows that you should stick to your guns in the first place, or you will be dissatisfied with yourself.” This alternative ending has not been published nor is it even clear if it was ever written. John Curran is his work on the Agatha Christie notebooks speculates what the alternative ending/s might be, based on what Christie had sketched in her notes.
Overview: A novel of anger, jealousy, betrayal and murder in 2000 BC.
It is Egypt, 2000 BC, where death gives meaning to life. At the foot of a cliff lies the broken, twisted body of Nofret, concubine to a Ka-priest. Young, beautiful and venomous, most agree that she deserved to die like a snake.
Yet Renisenb, the priest’s daughter, believes that the woman’s death was not fate, but murder. Increasingly, she becomes convinced that the source of evil lurks within her own father’s household.
As the wife of an eminent archaeologist, Agatha Christie took part in several expeditions to the Middle East. Drawing upon this experience and exhaustive research, she wrote this serial killer mystery laid in Egypt 4000 years ago.
More About This Story: Written at the request of her friend, Egyptologist, Stephen Glanville, here Agatha Christie combines her knowledge of archaeology with her knowledge of psychology, revealing the past lives and dramas of people in 2000 BC.
The premise for the story was derived from real Egyptian letters, from a man named Heqanakhte to his family discussing their behaviour and unwelcome response to his concubine. Christie actually changed the ending of the novel on the insistence of Glanville and her publishers and always regretted the decision, certain that her original ending would have been more effective.
The novel is yet to be adapted.
My Take: I must confess that while I’m about to finish reading all of Agatha Christie’s detective novels, there are some in her canon that I hadn’t planned to read. Aside from Destination Unknown and Passenger to Frankfurt, I’m not quite sure why I had also included this one. However, thanks to my recent trip to Egypt, I finally decided to read it – and I don’t regret it.
The story recounts the vicissitudes of a prosperous Egyptian family living on the west bank of the Nile in 2000 BC. Domestic order is paramount in this household until the head of the family brings home a concubine. Her arrival shatters the fragile family harmony, unleashing jealousy, suspicion and resentment that had long been suppressed. Finally, the death of one of its members precipitates the collapse of the household.
Even though the story unfolds over 4,000 years ago, Christie’s vision of human nature feels surprisingly modern. Love, envy, pride and fear are the timeless emotions that drive the characters, making their struggles as relevant today as they would have been in ancient Egypt. Beneath their costumes and rituals, one can imagine this novel as a Christie mystery set in an English country house – albeit transported to a different time and world.
Christie’s penchant for archaeological detail adds authenticity to the novel. Daily life, religious customs, and the seasons marked by the Nile’s floods are seamlessly woven into the narrative, enriching the story without overshadowing the mystery.
Unlike some of her lighter crime novels, Death Comes as the End carries a somber and tragic tone. It emphasises the slow disintegration of a family under pressure, rather than the trhill of clever deduction. Through the eyes of the protagonist, Renisenb, we experience not just a puzzle to be solved, but also a reflection on human fragilities such as jealousy, ambition and violence.
Ultimately, it is a hidden gem. Its rich history, finely drawn characters, and ever-increasing suspense create a story that lingers long after the final page. It may not be a detective novel in the strictest sense—in fact, there is no investigation whatsoever—but Christie manages to immerse us in a world that, while far removed from our own, reminds us that the most dangerous forces are eternal: love, envy, pride, and fear.
All in all, it is a tremendously evocative and masterfully written novel that confirms Agatha Christie’s genius, and for that reason, I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Death Comes As the End has been reviewed, among others, by Aidan Brack at “Mysteries Ahoy!”, Kate Jackson at “Cross-examining Crime”, Brad at “Ah Sweet Mytery”, Ben at “The Green Capsule”, Steve Barge at “In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel”, Moira at “Clothes in Books”, at “Countdown John’s Christie Journal”, Nick Fuller at “The Greatest Game in the World” and Kerrie Smith at “Mysteries in Paradise”.
(Source: Facsimile Dust Jackets LLC)
About the author: Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976) is recognised around the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English and another billion in 100 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language,outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Ms. Christie is the author of eighty crime novels and short story collections, nineteen plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott. Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was written towards the end of World War I (during which she served in the Voluntary Aid Detachment, VAD). In it she created Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian investigator who was destined to become the most popular detective in crime novels since Sherlock Holmes. After having been rejected by various publishers, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was eventually published by The Bodley Head in 1920. In 1926, now averaging a book a year, Agatha Christie wrote her masterpiece. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first of her books to be published by William Collins and marked the beginning of an author-publisher relationship that lasted for fifty years and produced over seventy books. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was also the first of Agatha Christie’s works to be dramatized – as Alibi – and to have a successful run in London’s West End. The Mousetrap, her most famous play, opened in 1952 and still runs nowadays; it is the longest-running play in history. Agatha Christie was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1971. She died in 1976, since then a number of her books have been published: the bestselling novel Sleeping Murder appeared in 1976, followed by An Autobiography and the short story collections Miss Marple’s Final Cases; Problem at Pollensa Bay; and While the Light Lasts. In 1998, Black Coffee was the first of her plays to be novelized by Charles Osborne, Ms. Christie’s biographer.
If I’m right, it is widely accepted Agatha Christie wrote twenty nineteen standalone novels, of which six were romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. The rest, among which we may find some of her best novels, are: The Man in the Brown Suit (1924) (Colonel Race, #1); The Sittaford Mystery apa The Murder at Hazelmoor (1931); Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (1934); And Then There Were None apa Ten Little Indians (1939); Death Comes as the End (1944); Sparkling Cyanide (1945) (Colonel Race, #4); Crooked House (1949); They Came to Baghdad (1951); Destination Unknown (1954); Ordeal by Innocence (1958); The Pale Horse (1961) (Ariadne Oliver, #5); Endless Night (1967) and Passenger to Frankfurt (1970).
Colonel Race and Ariadne Oliver often show up in other Christie’s book series, but I don’t considered them a “series character” by their own merits. However, even if Superintendent Battle join forces with Hercule Poirot, Ariadne Oliver, and Col. Race in Cards on the Table, he has enough entity in his other four books The Secret of Chimneys, The Seven Dials Mystery, Murder Is Easy and Towards Zero to be considered a “series character”.
Harper Collins Publishers UK publicity page
Harper Collins Publishers US publicity page
Notes On Death Comes as the End
A Crime is Afoot