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Summary
Summary
In Sparkling Cyanide, Agatha Christie seats six--including a murderer--around a dining table set for seven, one year to the day that a beautiful heiress was poisoned in that very room.
Six people sit down to a sumptuous meal at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary--"rosemary for remembrance." A strange sentiment considering no one is likely to forget the night, exactly a year ago, that Rosemary Barton died at exactly the same table, her beautiful face unrecognizable, convulsed with pain and horror.
But then Rosemary had always been memorable--she had the ability to arouse strong passions in most people she met. In one case, strong enough to kill. . . .
Author Notes
One of the most successful and beloved writer of mystery stories, Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was born in 1890 in Torquay, County Devon, England. She wrote her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920, launching a literary career that spanned decades. In her lifetime, she authored 79 crime novels and a short story collection, 19 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language with another billion in 44 foreign languages. Some of her most famous titles include Murder on the Orient Express, Mystery of the Blue Train, And Then There Were None, 13 at Dinner and The Sittaford Mystery.
Noted for clever and surprising twists of plot, many of Christie's mysteries feature two unconventional fictional detectives named Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Poirot, in particular, plays the hero of many of her works, including the classic, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), and Curtain (1975), one of her last works in which the famed detective dies.
Over the years, her travels took her to the Middle East where she met noted English archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. They married in 1930. Christie accompanied Mallowan on annual expeditions to Iraq and Syria, which served as material for Murder in Mesopotamia (1930), Death on the Nile (1937), and Appointment with Death (1938).
Christie's credits also include the plays, The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution (1953; film 1957). Christie received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for 1954-1955 for Witness. She was also named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1971.
Christie died in 1976.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sean Baker's performance of Colonel Race-one of Christie's minor sleuths, probably best-known for his supporting role in the Hercule Poirot tale Death on the Nile-is reminiscent of the great Clive Merrison's rendition of Sherlock Holmes. Baker, whether consciously or not, captures Merrison's crisp enunciation and dry delivery of lines, as Race re-examines the suicide of Rosemary Barton. The case is reopened via a typical Christie plot device: Barton's widower, George, reconstructs the fatal evening at the same venue, but ends up poisoned himself. This audio production benefits from a stellar full cast, and with a number of potential murderers for the listener to suspect, the distinctive voices of the players-including Naomi Frederick and Colin Tierney-make the mystery all the more compelling. But in a classic whodunit such as this, engagement hangs on the detective, and Baker's spot-on characterization will make listeners regret that Race appeared in only a handful of books. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Sparkling Cyanide Chapter One Iris Marle Iris Marle was thinking about her sister, Rosemary. For nearly a year she had deliberately tried to put the thought of Rosemary away from her. She hadn't wanted to remember. It was too painful--too horrible! The blue cyanosed face, the convulsed, clutching fingers . . . The contrast between that and the gay lovely Rosemary of the day before . . . Well, perhaps not exactly gay. She had had "flu"--she had been depressed, run down . . . all that had been brought out at the inquest. Iris herself had laid stress on it. It accounted, didn't it, for Rosemary's suicide? Once the inquest was over, Iris had deliberately tried to put the whole thing out of her mind. Of what good was remembrance? Forget it all! Forget the whole horrible business. But now, she realized, she had got to remember. She had got to think back into the past . . . to remember carefully every slight unimportant seeming incident . . . That extraordinary interview with George last night necessitated remembrance. It had been so unexpected, so frightening. Wait-- had it been so unexpected? Hadn't there been indications beforehand? George's growing absorption, his absent-mindedness, his unaccountable actions--his--well, queerness was the only word for it! All leading up to that moment last night when he had called her into the study and had taken the letters from the drawer of the desk. So now there was no help for it. She had got to think about Rosemary--to remember. Rosemary her sister . . . With a shock Iris realized suddenly that it was the first time in her life she had ever thought about Rosemary. Thought about her, that is, objectively, as a person. She had always accepted Rosemary without thinking about her. You didn't think about your mother or your father or your sister or your aunt. They just existed, unquestioned, in those relationships. You didn't think about them as people. You didn't ask yourself, even, what they were like. What had Rosemary been like? That might be very important now. A lot might depend upon it. Iris cast her mind back into the past. Herself and Rosemary as children . . . Rosemary had been the elder by six years. Glimpses of the past came back--brief flashes--short scenes. Herself as a small child eating bread and milk, and Rosemary, important in pigtails, "doing lessons" at a table. The seaside one summer--Iris envying Rosemary who was a "big girl" and could swim! Rosemary going to boarding school--coming home for the holidays. Then she herself at school, and Rosemary being "finished" in Paris. Schoolgirl Rosemary--clumsy, all arms and legs. "Finished" Rosemary coming back from Paris with a strange new frightening elegance, soft-voiced, graceful, with a swaying, undulating figure, with red-gold chestnut hair and big, black-fringed, dark blue eyes. A disturbing, beautiful creature--grown up--in a different world! From then on they had seen very little of each Other, the six-year gap had been at its widest. Iris had been still at school, Rosemary in the full swing of a "season." Even when Iris came home, the gap remained. Rosemary's life was one of late mornings in bed, fork luncheons with other débutantes, dances most evenings of the week. Iris had been in the schoolroom with Mademoiselle, had gone for walks in the park, had had supper at nine o'clock and had gone to bed at ten. The intercourse between the sisters had been limited to such brief interchanges as: "Hullo, Iris, telephone for a taxi for me, there's a lamb; I'm going to be devastatingly late," or "I don't like that new frock, Rosemary. It doesn't suit you. It's all bunch and fuss." Then had come Rosemary's engagement to George Barton. Excitement, shopping, streams of parcels, bridesmaids' dresses. The wedding. Walking up the aisle behind Rosemary, hearing whispers: "What a beautiful bride she makes..." Why had Rosemary married George? Even at the time Iris had been vaguely surprised. There had been so many exciting young men, ringing Rosemary up, taking her out. Why choose George Barton, fifteen years older than herself, kindly, pleasant, but definitely dull. George was well off, but it wasn't money. Rosemary had her own money, a great deal of it. Uncle Paul's money . . . Iris searched her mind carefully, seeking to differentiate between what she knew now and what she had known then. Uncle Paul, for instance? He wasn't really an uncle, she had always known that. Without ever having been definitely told them, she knew certain facts. Paul Bennett had been in love with their mother. She had preferred another and a poorer man. Paul Bennett had taken his defeat in a romantic spirit. He had remained the family friend, adopted an attitude of romantic, platonic devotion. He had become Uncle Paul, had stood godfather to the first-born child, Rosemary. When he died, it was found that he had left his entire fortune to his little goddaughter, then a child of thirteen. Rosemary, besides her beauty, had been an heiress. And she had married nice doll George Barton. Why? Iris had wondered then. She wondered now. Iris didn't believe that Rosemary had ever been in love with him. But she had seemed very happy with him -and she had been fond of him-yes, definitely fond of him. Iris had good opportunities for knowing, for a year after the marriage, their mother--lovely, delicate Viola Marle--had died, and Iris, a girt Of seventeen, had gone to live with Rosemary Barton and her husband. A girt of seventeen. Iris pondered over the picture of herself. What had she been like? What had she felt, thought, seen? She came to the conclusion that that young Iris Marie had been slow of development--unthinking, acquiescing in things as they were. Had she resented, for instance, her mother's earlier absorption in Rosemary?... Sparkling Cyanide . Copyright © by Agatha Christie. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
