Mrs. Christie has designed her latest masterpiece [Death on the Nile] as if she intended it to illustrate a text-book on detective writing. In Part I the characters are collected from different parts of the world and assembled in Egypt ready for anything; in Part II the individuals are moulded by social intercourse into a tragic group ready for murder; in Part III the predestined victim is killed and the reader should be ready with his solution. But is he? You can take your choice of motive: revenge, robbery, to escape exposure, jealousy, a political assassination or an act of social retribution. Each motive has an appropriate representative on board that Nile steamer. Those who imagine they have an inkling of Mrs. Christie's psychology will take a sly look at some of the faces…. As Poirot put it, and you can always believe Poirot: "It is more than odd—it is impossible! The sequence of events is impossible." But as Colonel Race replied (the Colonel from Cards on the Table, and you ought to be able to believe that Colonel, surely): "Not impossible since it happened." That is Mrs. Christie's magic—her crime is unbelievable, but her solution will not only be believed, but rapturously believed. (p. 1067)