In the novel Death on the Nile, The Barren Vine is a novel written by romance novelist Salome Otterbourne. After the murder of Linnet Doyle, Salome Otterbourne tells Colonel Race that she thinks the killer is Miss Bowers. She finds a parallel between her and one of her characters in The Barren Vine==a "repressed virgin", someone "sexually unattractive, innately respectable" and maddened by the sight of two young lovers....