Dear Reader,

One does rather wonder what Dame Agatha made of Egypt's high society while she was quietly taking notes for what would become one of literature's most enduring murder mysteries — this author suspects she found rather more material than she strictly needed.

The winter of the Nile cruise season brought a particular kind of visitor: European aristocracy, minor royalty, and the occasionally suspicious stranger, all confined together aboard steamers gliding past temples that had already seen several thousand years of human drama before this particular boatload arrived. Christie did not invent the intrigue. She simply observed it, rather precisely, and wrote it down.

The objects surviving from this era — travel cases, jewel caskets, the small elegant implements of a well-prepared journey — carry a particular glamour specific to people who dressed formally even while, one must assume, quietly suspecting one another of something.

The dining salon above is exactly the sort of room Christie would have known. Everyone facing inward. No one looking at the temples. The most extraordinary view in the world framed in the window behind them, and every eye trained on the person across the table instead.

This author cannot promise every piece in this collection has a body count attached. But she rather likes to imagine a few of them might.