If asked to describe a typical Agatha Christie murder mystery, I’d say that the plot usually revolves around the violent death of a member of British upper-class society. The setting is, more often than not, a vast country estate or exclusive resort, where a small group of people who know the victim have gathered. Of course, each person has a good motive for killing the victim, which makes the mystery last for most of the book.
Well, in Death Comes as the End, Christie does something a bit different: she uses ancient Egypt as the backdrop for murder and mayhem. The rest of her formula remains the same, however, which lessened the impact of the work as a whole.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Renisenb is a recently widowed young woman who returns home after entombing her husband to live with her father Imhotep; brothers Yahmose, Sobek, and Ipy; and their wives Satipy and Kait. Imhotep, is a well-to-do mortuary priest who is respected by everyone except his own family, with each son and his wife wanting a bigger share of responsibility and wealth.
This internal strife is heightened when Imhotep returns one day with a young concubine named Nofret. Imhotep dotes on Nofret to such an extent that it causes a great deal of jealousy in the house. Yahmose, Sobek, and Ipy are worried that Nofret will exert undue influence on their father, while Satipy and Kait are anxious about securing their children’s welfare after Nofret openly spurns them.
Nofret is a master manipulator and soon works everyone up in a frenzy while Imhotep is away on another business trip. The next day, however, she is found dead after apparently falling from a cliff. At first, it seems as though Nofret’s death might very well have been accidental; but after Satipy plunges to her death in exactly the same manner just a short time later, it’s clear that a murderer is on the loose.
In the weeks that follow, more family members are murdered, causing everyone in the household to think that Nofret’s ghost is exacting revenge against them. Of course, there’s a much more mundane answer than that, as Renisenb, her grandmother Esa, and the family scribe Hori slowly piece together the clues to unmask the real murderer.
My Reaction: I found this book to be very difficult to get into. First of all, the names were so strange that it was nearly impossible to all the characters straight. I realize Christie was going for authenticity here, and that it wouldn’t do to have characters in ancient Egypt sporting the names Bob and Mary, but still. I almost ended up having to write down all the characters’ names and relationships to each other — and probably would have done so had I been more interested in the story.
As I said above, the only thing that differentiates this novel from the rest of Christie’s works is the setting. Otherwise, we still have a murder (or five) in an upper-class family, and a limited suspect pool to choose from — one that inevitably shrinks as each new murder is committed. In typical Christie fashion, the author leads readers to believe that a certain character is the murderer, only to have that person killed off next, leaving the reader even more bewildered than before.
The more I read of Death Comes as the End, the more I started to like it. I especially appreciated all the details of life in ancient Egypt that Christie included, such as what people ate or drank, how families were structured, and what the burial rites were like.
Overall, Death Comes as the End turned out to be a pretty good read. If you can stick with the book long enough to get past the slow start, I think you’ll end up enjoying it!
Caper films are generally enjoyable for me, as, like George Peppard’s character from The A-Team, I love it when a plan comes together. It’s cool seeing criminal masterminds devise a clever plan to break into the a seemingly impenetrable bank or museum and then walk away with millions of dollars worth of swag. If the caper is based on a true story, so much the better — which is why I was looking forward to seeing The Bank Job on DVD.
Estelle Getty, an actress best known for her role as Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls, died at about 5:30am local time at her Hollywood Boulevard home. She was 84 years old (just 3 days shy of her 85th birthday), and had been suffering from something called 
Now that I’m working out at the gym three times per week, I need a steady stream of new audiobooks on my iPod to keep me entertained during each two-hour session. Of course, there’s no way I could afford to purchase all of the audiobooks I go through, so I pretty much settle for what my local library has on its shelves — which is how I discovered the Hannah Swensen mystery series from Joanne Fluke. 
I used to spend so much time reading the classics that I tended to overlook contemporary authors altogether, but I’ve been rectifying that flaw in recent years. Along with finally discovering the joys of Harry Potter (by the time the fourth book rolled around), I’ve also had fun reading Anita Shreve, Dan Brown, John Grisham, Stephen King, and Mark Haddon. Sure, few if any of these authors will be remembered 100 years from now, but they’re definitely entertaining.
As expected, The Dark Knight dominated the box office over the weekend, hauling in a record $155.34 million over three days. The second Christopher Nolan installment of the series had been eagerly anticipated by fans for a number of months prior to its release, and the great reviews coupled with the film’s distinction of being the late actor Heath Ledger’s final completed project drove advanced ticket sales through the roof, prompting many theaters to set up special screenings at unusual times such as 3am or 6am.
Thursday night’s brand-new episode of Burn Notice was the second of the season. Called “Turn and Burn”, it pretty much followed the same formula as the S2 premiere, which means this is probably what fans can look forward to for most of the season. Specifically, the episode had three different storylines going at once. The A-plot dealt with Michael’s Odd Job of the Week as he tries to extricate another person from danger; the B-plot dealt with Michael’s new handler Carla; and the C-plot addressed personal issues with Madeline.
Odd Job of the Week: Michael takes on another client courtesy of Sam. This one is Sophia, a cocktail waitress who has a problem with one of her customers stalking her. The man’s name is Raul, and he happens to work for a major drug smuggler. Michael thinks that something about Sophia’s story doesn’t add up, so he presses her for info — and learns that she’s actually an undercover DEA agent. She doesn’t want to go to the agency for help because they’ll take her off the case, so she used Sam to get to Michael instead because she’d heard how Michael has a penchant for fixing things.
Burn Notice Progress: Carla starts communicating with Michael via crossword puzzles in the local paper. She sets up a meeting to inform Michael that she has another task for him. She needs a super high-tech security card duplicated, and there’s only one guy in Miami who can handle the job. Michael is to locate the guy, get the card duplicated, and get it back to Carla quickly — all with no questions asked.
It’s not often that you’d find a feature film starring Richard Gere and Claire Danes to go straight to DVD in the U.S., but apparently that’s what happened to their 2007 project The Flock. I’d never heard of this movie before renting it last weekend, and when I went to get some info on it from IMDB.com, I learned of its fate. It was released in theaters in a few overseas markets, but went straight to DVD here at home.
I usually find child actors to be either precocious and annoying or utterly forgettable, so I was surprised when Freddie Highmore struck me as none of those things. I first came across Highmore’s work in the 2004 film Finding Neverland, where he starred opposite of Johnny Depp — and more than held his own — at the age of 12. After that brilliant performance, I started keeping an eye on Highmore’s work and have seen several films specifically because he was in them (August Rush, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Golden Compass).