Death Comes At the End is something slightly different for Christie. This is a mystery set in ancient Egypt. No shambling mummies out to get people, unfortunately.

However, Imhotep does feature, and his family. When people around them start dying, they have to do some Egyptian sleuthing and work out what is going on before they are candidates for the after-burial rites themselves.

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This book is an historical mystery set in ancient Egypt. It was the reason I read the book. Unfortunately, although set in ancient Egypt it could really have been anywhere. The setting was mostly an afterthought, and a bit of set dressing. I filled in a lot from my own store of reading and knowledge about ancient Egypt, which caused me to be dissatisfied with the reading experience of this book.

The story is of a funerary priest, Imhotep, who is entering the end of his life. His job is to pray for, and conduct offerings for a dead noble. He has been given an estate and money to insure the upkeep of the tomb and the required rites. He makes a good living, and has responsibilities to his society. His wife died long ago, and he has 3 grown children, 2 sons and 1 daughter. He also has a sulky teen son who has not been recognized as an adult yet. His aged mother lives with him.

The story opens with Imhotep away at his estates in the north. His family is on the estate in Thebes, where the tomb is located. His grown daughter, Renisenb, has recently been widowed and returned to the family with her little girl. She is the POV character. Through her eyes we see her remember the family she thought she knew when she left it as a young girl. Now she is learning it as an adult. She thinks that all is the same, but little differences make her uneasy. She wants to settle into the safety of the past.

Her grown brothers are chaffing at the fact that their father doesn't allow them to make any decisions about running the estate; their wives are contending for status; the younger son is petulant because although he is their father's favorite, no one treats him with respect.

Reni just wants to return to a peaceful life, while she forgets the life she had with her dead husband. She is friendly with the man, Hori, who works with her father and is his business/accounting manager. He is a poorer distant relation, and while older than Reni, he is not as old as her father. She remembers him from her childhood. Another person in the house is a poor woman her mother brought home, Henet. She is not family, and not exactly a servant. She is a busybody, and is always reminding everyone how much she does for the family with no thanks. She has wormed her way into the good graces of Imhotep, but the others dislike her and wish she would be sent away. Esa, the aged mother sees all, and understands much.

When Imhotep returns home, he brings with him, a young beautiful concubine, Nofret. It sends the house into an uproar. She is mercenary and devious, but he only see her false front of love and softness. He also brings a young scribe from his northern estate who has spotted embezzlement there. He is being rewarded and promoted by being moved to the Theban estate.

After a time Imhotep is summoned north again, and he leaves Nofret behind, and enjoins the family to treat her well and care for her. During her time there she has upset, angered and injured most of the family members. Soon after Imhotep leaves, she is found dead at the foot of a cliff. At the top of the cliff is a path they use to travel up to the tomb and chapel that the family must care for and venerate.

Imhotep returns in great distress, and they bury her and try to move on. But suddenly family members begin to die, or fall deathly ill. The hunt is on to find the killer. Some think its one of them, but others think it is the unhappy ghost of Nofret, who died under mysterious circumstances, and yet nothing was done to find out how she died.

Reni, Hori and Esa try to solve the mystery and stop the deaths.

I read mysteries, and have read other Agatha Christie books. They are OK, but I am not a big fan. The small-English-village ones seem too cookie cutter. This book was rather simple. The writing and characters were OK, but again, simple. The mystery was interesting, but the cast of suspects was too small. I didn't hate it, but it just didn't grab me, and I really didn't care. ( )

Death Comes as the End was quite a departure for Agatha Christie in some ways – it’s set on the upper Nile river 4000 years ago – but not in others. It’s in essence an Egyptian cozy, a murder mystery with a cast of suspects limited by culture and geography to a single extended family and a few of its employees.

The protagonist is a young widow who’s returned after her husband’s death to live in her family’s temple compound-cum-farm. Everything seems much the same as when she left eight years earlier – her three brothers are older, but their characters seem intact; her sisters-in-law feud as they ever did; and her father is older, and a bit more pompous, but still the same man. But then he brings home a little souvenir from a business trip: a hot young concubine who’s not at all interested in fitting in with her new ‘family’. And suddenly evil – and death – are unleashed into this peaceful environment.

I enjoyed the mystery here – it’s good solid Christie in terms of plotting – but I missed what I must acknowledge is my favorite part of reading AC: the charm of her characters and settings, particularly those from the 1930s-40s. So although I’d recommend Death Comes as the End to an experienced Christie reader, I’d never suggest it as a place to start on her work. ( )

Murder in Ancient Egypt. Its an interesting deravation from Poirot, Miss Marple and the others. The eventual solution is a complete surprise as well. ( )

One of Dame Agatha's weaker efforts, could have been called, "Ten Little Egyptians" ( )