Storyline
Syria, 1937: Hercule Poirot is one of several people present at an archaeological dig to find the skull of St John the Baptist, led by the exuberant Lord Boynton and his loyal son Leonard. The enterprise has been financed by Boynton’s rich, rude and overbearing American wife. She bullies her three adopted children, Carol, Jinny and Raymond, as well as the family’s nanny. Sarah King, a young English doctor, falls for Raymond and would love to tear him from his mother’s apron-strings, and another doctor, Dr Gerard, takes an interest in Jinny, as does a Polish nun, who, with Jinny, is subject to an attack - by white slavers, according to the independent travel-writer Dame Celia Westholme. A mysterious young American, Jefferson Cope, whose link to the Boyntons seems tenuous, completes the group. Only his Lordship has any love for his wife so that, when she is found stabbed to death one blisteringly hot afternoon, Poirot has more than his fair share of suspects to interrogate.
Images
Trivia
Featuring new characters
Features considerable changes regarding Agatha Christie’s novel, like the fabrication of new characters (Lord Boynton, Nanny Taylor, and Sister Agnieszka), the omission of others (such as Nadine Boynton and Amabel Pierce), the retooling of existing characters and even the reasons of the killer.
Mark Gatiss also worked behind the scenes
Mark Gatiss (Leonard Boynton) also worked behind the scenes on Poirot; writing the screenplays for Cat Among the Pigeons (2008), Hallowe’en Party (2010), and The Big Four (2013).
Quotes
A man is sitting in a tavern in Damascus. He looks up from his wine and sees Death staring at him across the room. He cries out, “But this cannot be my time!” He flees Damascus, he rides his horse fast, right across the desert to Samarra. When he arrives, he’s thirsty. Standing before him at the well is Death. On seeing Death for the second time, the man cries out, “This cannot be! For I escaped you in Damascus.” And Death, he lays his hand upon the shoulder of the man and says, “I also was surprised to see you in Damascus for my appointment with you, it was always to be here in Samarra.”