"Appointment with Death" by Agatha Christie has many of the elements of the classic Agatha Christie mystery: intriguing characters, interesting settings, and an intricate puzzle with many moving parts. While I enjoyed the book I did find that it is not necessarily one of her best works and certainly does not compare with "Murder on the Orient Express" or my personal favorite, "The ABC Murders."

I chose the book in large part because it was set in Mandate Palestine. The setup a a little tedious but intriguing. A young female medical student and an eminent French psychologist in Jerusalem observe a dysfunctional American family on holiday ruled over by a malevolent and tyrannical mother who makes the lives of her family a living hell. As is the way, on a trip to Petra, the mother is found dead with what appears to be a puncture wound from a hypodermic needle on her wrist. With so many possible suspects (i.e., her entire family, now free from her grips), it is the job of that esteemed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot to get to the truth. I like the elements of psychology and the unfolding of the investigation but was not impressed with a few of the more structural or meta aspects of the book - Poirot makes a list of all the relevant facts for the reader and the whole second half is very much paint-by-numbers. But the ending is unexpected and I got great pleasure out of reading it. You can always rely on Agatha Christie for something enjoyable to read.