Death is waiting
Death is waiting (original title Appointment with Death ) is the 23rd detective novel by Agatha Christie . It first appeared in the UK on May 2, 1938 at the Collins Crime Club and in the US at Dodd, Mead and Company later that year. The German-language first edition was published in 1944 by Scherz Verlag , Bern, in the translation by Auguste Flesch von Bringen. In 1984 the same publisher published a new translation by Ursula Gail, for which the title Rendezvous with a corpse was also used.
Hercule Poirot is investigating .
The novel reflects Christie's experiences from traveling to the Middle East with her husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan .
introduction
In a hotel in Jerusalem Poirot overhears a conversation between a man and a woman, in the course of which the man says: “You can see that she has to die?” A few days later, Mrs. Boynton, a sadistic tyrant, all of them If members of her family dominate and who extend her aversion to a group outside the actual family, Poirot has a new case: he only has twenty-four hours to solve the case and it is not even certain whether it is really one Was murder.
action
The scene of the event is essentially Transjordan . The first part of the novel is structured like a psychological thriller . The Boynton family and thus also the later victim are introduced. This is what Sarah King and Dr. Gerard discussing family behavior. Mrs. Boynton is sadistic and domineering, which follows (it is suggested) from her previous job: prison guard.
Sarah is drawn to Raymond Boynton, while Jefferson Cope tries to get Nadine Boynton away from her husband, Lennox Boynton, and from her mother-in-law's sphere of influence. After Sarah confronted Mrs. Boynton with her opinion, she uttered a strange threat, apparently in response: “I never forget anything, no story, no name or face.” When the tour company arrived in Petra , Mrs. Boynton announced, totally atypical for them, the young people free and send them on a walk. She is later found dead on her chair in front of the tent, with a hypodermic needle sticking into her wrist. Nobody is really unhappy with the evil woman's death.
But Poirot does not believe in natural death and claims that he can solve the case in twenty-four hours simply by questioning the suspects. These interviews gradually result in a timing that seems impossible: Sarah King puts the time of death before the time some family members claim that the victim was still alive. Attention is also drawn to a syringe that appears to have been taken from Dr. Gerard was stolen and later put back. The poison that killed Mrs. Boynton is identified as digitoxin , which she also took as a drug.
Poirot discovers that every member of the family found their mother dead after returning from the hike. But because everyone assumed that someone else in the family had murdered the mother, everyone kept this discovery a secret. But since all family members knew that the mother was taking Digitoxin, they could have given her the overdose much more easily with the daily medicine. From this fact Poirot deduces that one of the fellow travelers must have been the perpetrator.
He ultimately unmasked Lady Westholme as the murderer, who before her marriage in America was in the prison in which Mrs. Boynton was a guard. The meaningful sentence "I forget ..." was not addressed to Sarah, who was standing directly in front of Mrs. Boynton, but to Lady Westholme, who was standing behind Sarah. Fearing that her past would come out, she decided to commit the murder. Disguised as an Arab , she committed the murder and obtained an alibi with the help of Miss Pierce's myopia and suggestibility.
Lady Westholme, who overhears Poirot's remarks in an adjoining room, commits suicide. The family, free from all burdens, can finally lead a happy life: Sarah marries Raymond; Carol marries Jefferson and Ginevra begins a successful career as an actress: She is the only natural child of the deceased and shows the first similarities in character.
People in Death Waits
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- Colonel Carbury, Chief of Police in Transjordan
- Mrs. Boynton, the victim
- Raymond Boynton, her stepson
- Carol Boynton, her step daughter
- Ginevra Boynton, her daughter
- Lennox Boynton, her stepson
- Nadine Boynton, Lennox's wife
- Jefferson Cope, an American
- Dr. Gerard, a French psychologist
- Sarah King, a young doctor
- Lady Westholme, a Member of the British Parliament
- Miss Amabel Pierce, a former nanny and governess
References to other works
Several earlier studies by Poirot are mentioned in the novel. In a conversation with Colonel Carbury, for example, he tells the story of With Open Cards and also recalls Colonel Race. Miss Pierce makes a few comments about the murders of Mr. ABC to emphasize what a famous detective Poirot is.
Particularly interesting is Nadine's remark that she heard that Poirot accepted the official version of what had happened in the murder on the Orient Express . So that means that she could only have learned the truth from one of the passengers.
The novel is one of those in the work of Agatha Christie in which the perpetrator is given the chance to avoid the threatened execution by suicide . This only happens in Poirot novels. The author allows this if she wants to emphasize the human side of Poirot, shows sympathy for the figure of the murderer and has a certain understanding of the motif. These include the novels Alibi , The House on the Dune and The Dog Playing Ball .
Film adaptations and theater adaptations
Rendezvous with a corpse
The novel is one of six stories that were filmed with Peter Ustinov in the role of Poirot.
Death is waiting
The novel was filmed in 2008 for the eleventh season of the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot with David Suchet as Poirot.
Important English and German language editions
- 1938 First edition United Kingdom Collins Crime Club (London) 1938
- 1938 First edition USA Dodd Mead and Company (New York) 1938
- 1944 German first edition Death awaits in the translation by Auguste Flesch von Bringen
- 1984 New translation by Ursula Gail
- 1989 Alternative title Rendezvous with a Corpse
- 2003 New translation by Ursula-Maria Mössner
Audio books
- 2000 Death is waiting (4 audio cassettes). Speaker: Martin Maria Schwarz . Director: Hans Eckardt : Publishing house and studio for audio book productions Beltershausen
- 2005 Rendezvous with a corpse (3 CDs): with the original Miss Marple film melody. Read by Klaus Dittmann . Director: Sven Stricker . Translated from the English by Tanja Handels . Authorized reading version. The Hörverlag Munich
Web links
- Appointment with Death on the official Agatha Christie website
- Appointment with Death (1988) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Appointment with Death (2008) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Observer May 1, 1938 (Page 6)
- ↑ John Cooper and BA Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition (Pages 82 and 86) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ a b New translation in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ a b Proof of the new title in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ New translation in 2003 in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ Audiobook (complete) in the catalog of the German National Library
- ^ Audiobook (licensed) in the catalog of the German National Library