Death Comes as the End (1945) – Agatha Christie | First Edition Identification Guide

The quiet lives of an Egyptian family are disturbed when the father, Imhotep, returns from the north with his new concubine, Nofret, who begins to sow discontent amongst them. Once the deaths begin, fears are aroused of a curse upon the house, but is the killer closer to home?
The novel is primarily written from the perspective of Renisenb, a young widow reacquainting herself with her family when her father Imhotep, a successful but pompous and short-sighted mortuary priest, brings a new “wife”, Nofret, into their lives. Nofret soon disrupts and antagonises Imhotep’s sons – Yahmose, Sobek and Ipy – as well as their wives. Renisenb realises the housekeeper Henet, while feigning devotion, is full of hatred. She confronts Henet near the end of the story, who in a fit of pique admits she hates Renisenb and hated Renisenb’s long-deceased mother.
After Imhotep is called away, Satipy and Kait, the elder sons’ wives, try to bully Nofret with tricks, but the plan backfires when Nofret appeals to Imhotep and he threatens to disown his sons and their families upon his return. Suddenly everyone has a motive to kill Nofret and when she is found dead at the foot of a cliff, an accident seems unlikely, although no one will acknowledge anything else.
Next, Satipy falls to her death in terror from the same cliff while walking with Yahmose. Renisenb, and others, wonder if it was Nofret’s vengeful spirit that she was looking at over Yahmose’s shoulder moments before her death. This theory gathers force when Yahmose and Sobek drink poisoned wine. Sobek dies, but Yahmose lingers on, having drunk less of the wine. A slave boy who says he saw Nofret’s ghost poisoning the wine dies of poison shortly afterwards.
The handsome scribe Kameni has fallen in love with Renisenb, and eventually asks her to marry him. Unsure whether she loves him or her father’s advisor Hori, whom she has known since she was a child, she leaves the choice effectively in her father’s hands and becomes engaged to Kameni. She realises, however, that his relationship with Nofret was closer than she had supposed, and that jealousy may have influenced Nofret’s bitter hatred towards the family. Hori and Esa, the elderly mother of Imhotep (a clever woman who although almost completely blind sees things clearer than most others – especially her son) begin to investigate the possibility of a human murderer. Ipy, himself a likely suspect, starts to boast about his new, better position with his father; he plots to get rid of housekeeper Henet and tells her so. The next morning, Ipy is found dead in the lake, drowned.
The field of suspects has been further narrowed. Esa attempts to flush out the murderer by dropping a hint about the death of Satipy, but is herself murdered by means of poisoned unguent, despite the presence of a food taster. Henet – who knows the murderer’s identity and is momentarily powerful amid the chaos – is smothered by the linens used to wrap the ever-increasing number of victims.
On the same cliff path where Nofret and Satipy died, Renisenb, apparently summoned by Hori, hears footsteps behind her and turns to see Yahmose. She then sees the look of murderous hatred in her brother’s eyes that Satipy saw before she was killed. As Renisenb is about to be killed, however, Hori slays Yahmose with an arrow and saves her. Hori explains to Renisenb that Satipy was not looking in fear at anything beyond Yahmose — she was looking straight at him. He had consumed a non-lethal dose of poison and pretended to recuperate while committing murders, both to make himself chief heir and to indulge his newfound love of violence. Renisenb’s final choice is whom to marry: Kameni, a lively husband not unlike her first, or Hori, an older and more enigmatic figure. She makes her choice and falls into Hori’s arms.