Death Comes as the End: Agatha Christie’s Murder Mystery Set in Ancient Egypt and the Curse of Nofret
When a wealthy Egyptian landowner brings home a young concubine, Nofret, and showers her with gifts, his children are furious, all the more so because their father, blinded by his feelings, seems ready to leave everything to her. Everything changes when Nofret falls from a cliff.
Author: Agatha Christie (1890–1976)
Title: Death Comes as the End (1944)
Format: English paperback (HarperCollins), 272 pages
Scope: Historical murder mystery set in ancient Egypt
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/000819632X (ASIN 000819632X)
A Curse on the Family
After her death and burial, it seems the girl begins to take her revenge: one by one, those who spoke ill of her or mocked her die, poisoned by wine, in strange accidents and in other ways. The curse that falls on the family is hard to explain. For the priests, the only remedy is to ask forgiveness through a ritual and to leave a letter written by a scribe before Nofret’s tomb.
The Sceptical Grandmother
Others are more sceptical, like the old grandmother, who sees nothing supernatural in it: she believes the deaths are not caused by Nofret, but by someone among the living who is using superstition to control the family. When she too dies, things become even more complicated, because she was the only one who thought this way; given her great age, her sons do not suspect that her death was anything but natural.
A Struggle for Power
A power struggle breaks out among the members of the family. The problems and unsolved mysteries keep multiplying and nobody can explain them, until the investigations finally lead to the solution.
An Archaeologist’s Wife
Christie knew the ancient Near East at first hand. Her second husband, Max Mallowan, was an archaeologist, and she spent many seasons with him at excavations in Syria and Iraq, helping to clean and record finds. The idea for this novel came from their friend Stephen Glanville, an Egyptologist, who encouraged her to write a mystery set in ancient Egypt and advised her on the details of daily life.
Real Letters From the Past
The family at the centre of the story was inspired by real documents: letters written around 2000 BC by a farmer and priest, discovered in a tomb near Thebes in the 1920s. They show a man fussing over his household, his crops and his quarrelling relatives, very much like Imhotep in the novel. Christie used them to create a world that feels both remote and surprisingly familiar, full of jealousy, ambition and family squabbles that could happen in any age.
Renisenb
Much of the story is seen through the eyes of Renisenb, Imhotep’s widowed daughter, who returns to her father’s house and finds it changed. Her search for meaning, her friendship with the quiet scribe Hori and her growing fear give the book an emotional depth unusual in Christie’s work. Christie later wrote that she had given way to Glanville’s wishes over the ending, and readers can judge for themselves whether it works.
Who Will Love It
Fans of historical crime fiction, and anyone fascinated by ancient Egypt, will find it a rare treat: a puzzle in Christie’s best style, set in a world where the detective’s tools are common sense and close observation of human nature.
It is also a good choice for readers who think they have read every type of Christie: the setting makes everything feel new.
Read it slowly and savour it.
The ancient setting never feels like a costume.
Why Read It
It is Christie’s only novel set in the ancient world, and a remarkable experiment: a classic closed-circle mystery transported to Thebes around 2000 BC, with no detective other than the family itself.
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