On top of that, A Pocket Full of Rye isn’t set in an exotic locale like, say, Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express. I mean, I wouldn’t expect a book about poisoning and murder to be ‘light’ in tone, but Christie has a kind of bemused pity for most of her characters, often highlighting how dumb, ugly, or banal they are.
The ‘gimmick’ in this case is that the murders are very loosely based on the old nursery rhyme ‘Four and Twenty Blackbirds.’ The first victim is found poisoned with grains of rye in his pocket, giving the book its title.Īpart from the pretty standard Christie-style mystery, the big thing that struck me about A Pocket Full of Rye was a rather English streak of polite cynicism running through it. There’s a murder– and then two more, and soon enough a police inspector and Miss Marple are systematically interviewing people and gathering clues to figure out just what the heck’s going on. There’s a big ol’ manor house, populated with a half dozen stock characters: a corrupt businessman, his bickering children, the mysteriously shifty housemaid, and so on. To be honest, if you’ve read (or watched) enough Christie, you’ll know exactly what to expect. And even though Miss Marple doesn’t show up ’til page 100 or so, she’s the one who (spoiler alert) solves the mystery at the heart of A Pocket Full of Rye.
Marple is a fun character: a seemingly harmless little old lady with a keen mind and an inquisitive nature. Which reminds me I still need to see Branaugh’s Murder on the Orient Express, but that’ll probably have to wait ’til the DVD/Netflix release.Īnd so, in an effort to broaden my horizons, and to look into a master writer at work, I snagged A Pocket Full of Rye from the library, more or less at random.Ī Pocket Full of Rye stars Miss Marple, Christie’s second most (or perhaps first-most, depending on who you ask) famous character. Both in the masterfully done BBC adaptations, and also in her work itself– The Alley theater has put on great productions of Christie’s plays like Black Coffee. But not too respectable, mind you, ’cause I’m not in the mood to read an experimental prose-poem based on the author’s adolescence growing up in 70’s Nantucket or something.Ĭhristie is one of those authors whose work I’ve probably watched more than read. I was in the mood for something a little different (read: something without dragons or spaceships on the cover). Book Review: Agatha Christie’s A Pocket Full of Rye
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