3.5

This was the first Agatha Christie novel I've ever read, so I went into Death on the Nile knowing nothing of her writing style or Hercule Poirot as her detective character. I'm also not someone who reads a lot of mysteries in general.

It was quite a delightful reading experience overall. Her prose was evocative enough to act as a good backdrop for the plot, though frankly the setting of Egypt was completely inconsequential to the story and so we really only got hints of flavor from the setting.

The mystery itself, without giving anything away, was an intriguing 'who done it' with a literal boatload of red herrings that worked out to greater or lesser extent. There were some aspects of the resolution to certain plotlines that felt incredibly sappy, which is even stated by Poirot himself, but that in-text acknowledgement didn't excuse it for me. The resolution about the pearls in particular felt very underwhelming and bordered on daytime soap opera territory.

Overall, I can see why people enjoy her work. The colorful cast of characters for Poirot to play off of really were the crux of my enjoyment, and I think that even though some of the red herring reveals were unnecessary, the complex characters rather made up for it.

I may not reach for another Agatha Christie on a lark, but if one came across my path again, I'd give it a go.