Notes

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 Schuyler, an arrogant American lady
with her niece, Cornelia Robson, and her secretary,
Miss Bowers; and Dr Bessner. Hercule Poirot, a retired
detective, is also on his way, as is his friend Colonel Race
who is in search of a violent political leader.