Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie (1944) is a groundbreaking historical mystery set in ancient Egypt. When a wealthy patriarch’s death sparks a series of murders within his family, suspicion and secrets abound.
This novel stands out as the only one by Christie set outside the 20th century and featuring no European characters. Set in Thebes in 2000 BC, it reflects her fascination with the ancient world, inspired by her time in the Middle East with her archaeologist husband, Sir Max Mallowan. It’s the first full-length novel to merge historical fiction with the mystery genre, paving the way for the historical whodunit.
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Tea, Tonic, and Toxin is a book club and podcast for people who love mysteries, detective stories, thrillers, introspection, and good conversation. Each month, your hosts, Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters, will dive into the history of mystery to get a firsthand look at how the mystery genre evolved.
We’re discussing seminal works by Edgar Allan Poe (Auguste Dupin), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Wilkie Collins, Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey), Agatha Christie (including Death Comes as the End), Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe), Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe).
Along the way, we’ll entertain ideas, prospects, theories, doubts, and grudges, along with fabulous guests. And we hope to entertain you, dear friend. We want you to experience the joys of reading some of the best mysteries and thrillers ever written.
Teasers & Tidbits
Dashiell Hammett’s crime novel Red Harvest is more than just a gripping detective story. It’s also a political statement, inspired in part by a true incident – the 1920 Anaconda Road massacre, triggered by a labor dispute in the mining town of Butte, Montana. The story begins with the main
When Dorothy L. Sayers wrote Whose Body? (her debut novel, published in 1923), she introduced a detective who would go on to appear in 10 more novels and five collections of short stories. Lord Peter Wimsey was no ordinary detective, however. Readers of the stories about this character will soon
If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, I’m sure you’re already familiar with Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian detective who manages to solve virtually every murder he stumbles across. But did you know The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the novel where he first appears? Seeing the way
This detective novel introduces readers to a British mining engineer – Richard Hannay – who has just returned to London from Rhodesia. The story was written by Scottish author John Buchan and published in 1915. The tale is exciting, fast-moving, and action-packed. Not surprisingly, it was adapted into several different
Even though the name of this book is Trent’s Last Case, the novel is actually about the FIRST detective case of detective Philip Trent. Published in 1913, the main character, Philip Trent, is an artist, freelance journalist, and amateur detective sent to report on a case involving the murder of
Long before he started writing his own detective stories, Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton was already a fan of the genre. He had been reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes since he was a boy and even tried his hand at writing mysteries of his own with a
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