Appointment with Death

 

I hope to have done Jerusalem thoroughly in a couple more days and I'm letting them get me out an itinerary at Cook's so as to do the Holy Land thoroughly — Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee. It's all going to be mighty interesting. Then there's Jerash; there are some very interesting ruins there — Roman, you know. And I'd very much like to have a look at the Rose Red City of Petra, a most remarkable natural phenomenon, I believe that is, and right off the beaten track; but it takes the best part of a week to get there and back and do it properly.

Having not read an Agatha Christie murder mystery since borrowing several from my Mom's bookshelf as a teenager, I was nonetheless pleased when Kennedy gifted me a copy of Appointment with Death for Mother's Day (after I had offhandedly mentioned an interest in its settings of Jerusalem and Petra). Having now finished it, and read some reviews from other readers (including excerpts from original reviews after the book's release in 1938), I'll note that this has never been considered one of Christie's “better” mysteries – and it doesn't quite compare favourably with what I remember of my Mom's more popular titles. Still: this was a thoughtful gift, a quick and interesting read, and no, I didn't know whodunit before Hercules Poirot made his big reveal.

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

Appointment with Death opens with Poirot overhearing this statement as he is closing his hotel window in Jerusalem, and immediately dismisses it as some author or playwright trying to work out a plot. Other than crossing paths with a couple of characters a few days later – at which point he'll absorb a few more important clues – Poirot then disappears for half of the book. In his place, the narrative centres around a family of rich Americans – a large and imposing matriarch and her band of cowed and servile adult children – and the doctors (Theodore Gerard, a famous French psychologist, and Sarah King, a recently qualified British doctor) who spend their time together discussing the sadistic psychological hold that this Mrs. Boynton has over her brood. By the time this group, and others, meet in Petra by happenstance and a body is discovered that will have Poirot called in by the British authorities in Amman to investigate, the reader has a pretty good idea of who everyone is – what their motives, capabilities, and desires might be regarding murder.

"I never forget," she said. "Remember that. I've never forgotten anything, not an action, not a name, not a face. . ." There was nothing in the words themselves, but the venom with which they were spoken made Sarah retreat a step. And then Mrs. Boynton laughed. It was, definitely, rather a horrible laugh.

Although Mrs. Boynton's children are all highly nervous and under sway to the old woman's malevolent powers to the extent that they refuse to speak to strangers, the two doctors are interested in helping them (each of them even states that it might be for the best if she were poisoned for the sake of her grown children). Gerard's first impression of 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 spider in the center of a web!

And Sarah's reaction upon discovering that the Boyntons had arrived in Petra before her group:

Gone was the feeling of peace — of escape — that the desert had given her. She had been led from freedom back into captivity. She had ridden down into this dark winding valley and here, like an arch priestess of some forgotten cult, like a monstrous swollen female Buddha, sat Mrs. Boynton.

(The cover of the edition I read, as seen above, uses images of the Buddha and the spider web, along with that quote that Poirot overhears in the first scene and a syringe; how ugly is that? I see that the first edition has a picture of one of the Petra monuments - the Treasury or the Monastery - on its cover, and that's so much cooler.) Soon enough there will be a body and an investigation; Poirot will interview everyone individually, they all will lie, and he will then gather the group together for a big reveal.

So far as the mystery goes, I guess it all hangs together nicely – but I think I would rather see Poirot psychoanalyse his suspects after a crime is committed than watch as two random characters do so throughout. I suppose it was interesting (for 1938) to have one of the doctors be a young woman, and Dame Christie uses this Sarah character to make some pretty forceful points about gender (I wonder how all this went over in the day?):

• Like many high-spirited women, Sarah believed herself to admire strength. She had always told herself that she wanted to be mastered. When she met a man capable of mastering her she found that she did not like it at all! To break off her engagement had cost her a good deal of heart burning, but she was clear-sighted enough to realize that mere mutual attraction was not a sufficient basis on which to build a lifetime of happiness.

• It's awful, isn't it, but I do hate women! When they're inefficient and idiotic like Miss Pierce, they infuriate me, and when they're efficient like Lady Westholme, they annoy me more still.

• I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains. Sex only matters where sex is directly concerned.

And a final word on the setting – this was the basis of my interest in this particular book, and although I understand that Christie travelled throughout the Middle East with her archaeologist husband, the scenes in Petra could have been anywhere. There's nothing about the carvings or the monuments – just high cliffs and travellers being given the choice between sleeping in a cave or a tent – and perhaps that means Christie wasn't very impressed with the site?

"I think it's rather wonderful and just a little horrible," said Sarah. "I always thought of it as romantic and dreamlike — the 'rose red city.' But it's much more real than that — it's as real as — as raw beef."

"And very much the color of it," agreed Mr. Cope.

(I looked to see if there was a movie adaptation I could watch to get better into the setting, but the two that I could find were both filmed elsewhere. Rats.) Again, this was a thoroughly decent mystery – not one of Christie's best – and I wanted to read it, and now I have. No regrets.