Teacher’s notes

LEVEL 5

PENGUIN READERS Teacher Support Programme

Death on the Nile
Agatha Christie cruise down the Nile in Egypt when they find that Jacqueline is following them, determined not to let them enjoy their happiness. Shortly after the trip has started, Linnet is found dead in her cabin and many of the passengers have a motive for wanting to kill her. As the famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, also on the boat, tries to disentangle what has happened, Linnet’s maid is stabbed and Mrs Otterbourne, the writer, is murdered. It is through Poirot’s intelligent reasoning that he manages to solve the mystery. Simon and Jacqueline are discovered to have carefully planned the murder and then found they needed to kill the other two victims. Chapter 1: Linnet Ridgeway is ‘the girl who has everything’. Rich, intelligent and beautiful, she has just bought a new property – Wode Hall, and Lord Windlesham wants to marry her. Her friend Joanna, who envies her position and is delighted with her pearls, is with her when Linnet’s former classmate, Jaqueline de Bellefort, pays her a visit. Jackie is engaged to Simon Doyle, a handsome though poor young man. Not in a wealthy position herself, Jackie wants Linnet to employ Doyle as her land agent, so that they can marry and go to Egypt on their honeymoon. Linnet gives him the job, but eventually marries Doyle herself, and they go to Egypt for their honeymoon and stay at the Cataract Hotel. In the meantime, other people are on their way to Egypt. There are Linnet’s lawyers; Mr Pennington, from the USA, and Jim Fanthorp, from England, who look after her financial interests; Joanna Southwood, one of Linnet’s friends, who is interested in her pearls; Tim Allerton, Joanna’s cousin, and his mother, Mrs Allerton; an engineer, whose plans to marry Linnet’s former maid even though he’s already married, have been thwarted by Linnet; Mrs Otterbourne, a frustrated writer of cheap novels and her daughter, Rosalie; Miss Van