I can't help but give Agatha Christie five stars every time, she's just so good! Every time I try to guess who the murderer was, and I guess wrong.

Appointmemt with Death is more psychological than some of Christie's other works. We have among our cast of characters a psychologist and a young woman who may or may not be mentally ill, and an elderly mother who controls the lives of her grown children. Not surprisingly, the evil (step)mother is killed. Poirot is invited to investigate, but it may just be natural causes (but it's Agatha Christie, so it's of couse murder). Much of it deals with the psychological abuse Mrs. Boynton heaps on her family. She won't let them talk to or associate with others, barely even letting them out of the house without accompanying them. She tells her youngest daughter to take a nap (the girl is 19), and when the girl balks, her mother tells her she is tired, has a headache, and is about to fall ill. Poirot must sift through the many motives of the Boynton family to unravel the case, plus there are witty and quirky characters to make you laugh and roll your eyes.

Also, the setting at Petra is wonderfully described, and left me wondering if a similar tour to the one in the book is available today.