Death Comes as the End

Between them, Agatha Christie and Emilia Fox manage to make ancient Egyptians sound believable. Christie delivers a tale of deception and murder in an extended family of upper-caste Egyptians of 2000 BC. She includes just enough historically accurate information to ground the story without making it a treatise on how people once lived. Fox wisely chooses not to attempt Egyptian accents. Instead, she reveals social strata by using a range of accents from different English classes; it's a surprising choice that works well. Her pacing is easy to listen to, and she shades character beautifully--rarely have the sniveling sounded so uxorious, the good so innocent, or the murderous so deceiving. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine