Underheard

No spoilers in this post

I think I can safely say Sparkling Cyanide (1944) was the third Agatha Christie I ever read, because I remember being very attracted by the cover. It’s the one you can see in this post, and I found it both pretty and intriguing. Of all the Christie books my parents had, this was very likely the one I chose, just because of that.

The book begins with a number of characters remembering the beautiful and wealthy Rosemary Barton. At this point she has been dead for almost a year from what appears to have been a suicide, though no one can find a very convincing reason, or explain why she choose to do it by cyanide at a restaurant. Among them are her younger sister Iris, who reflects she never really knew her sister, and her husband, George Barton. There are also Anthony Browne and Stephen Farraday, both in love with Rosemary, Stephen's wife Sandra, and Ruth Lessing, George’s secretary. All of them people who may have had a reason to kill Rosemary. Then George arranges a new dinner party, with the same people, and the same restaurant as when Rosemary died. And someone else dies, and this time it’s clear it’s murder…

This novel has neither Poirot nor Miss Marple as detectives, but the semi-recurring Colonel Race, who in this book is an old friend of Geroge Barton. I’m always surprised Poirot isn’t in it, which is probably because he is the detective in the short story “Yellow Iris”, which has pretty much the same plot and characters, but another murderer. And Sparkling Cyanide feels like a Poirot novel than anything else, and there is not a very good reason for not having him, apart from Christie just not wanting to.

Generally Sparkling Cyanide seems to be considered a mid-rung Christie. It’s written during her Golden Age, and I think it would have been ranked higher if Poirot had been in it. Race just isn’t a very exciting detective. Personally, though, it has always been one of my favourites. I always enjoyed the first chapters where the various characters remember Rosemary, and the murder plot, even if it’s very complicated, is entertaining. And I’m still coveting a dressing gown in spotted silk, like the one Rosemary has. Also, Aunt Lucilla is quite funny.

There are several adaptations, but the only one I have seen is from 1983 with Anthony Andrews as Anthony Browne. The only thing I remember about that one was that I was disappointed it wasn’t set in the 1940s. There is, however, an excellent adaptation of “Yellow Iris” with David Suchet from 1993.