Appointment with Death

Petra's red rock provides the setting for one of Hercule Poirot's most psychologically pointed cases. Mrs Boynton rules her adult family through fear, and the novel spends its first half showing exactly how that control works before she is found dead during an excursion. Poirot arrives with a limited window in which to sort motive from resentment, since nearly everyone present had reason to want her gone. The solution turns on reading behaviour, timing and the small evasions people make when questioned, which is Christie at her most interested in family damage. Highlights of this edition: • Poirot working a closed circle of suspects far from London • A domineering matriarch whose grip on her family supplies the motive • Middle Eastern travel scenes woven through the investigation • Close attention to manipulation, freedom and long-held resentment Good for readers of golden age detective fiction and collectors building a Poirot run, stocked by Boipoka.