This edition published 9th February 2017 by Harper Collins.
From the cover of the book:
A beautiful heiress is fatally poisoned in a West End restaurant…
Six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary – in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton who died at the same table exactly one year previously.
No one present on that fateful night would ever forget the woman’s face, contorted beyond recognition – or what they remembered about her astonishing life.
***********
When beautiful heiress Rosemary Barton dies at a dinner table in a swanky London restaurant, after consuming cyanide in her champagne, there is nothing to suggest her demise is anything other than the result of a dramatic suicide.
Six months later, her husband George receives anonymous letters suggesting that Rosemary was actually murdered. If Rosemary did not kill herself, then the person responsible can only be one of their fellow diners at the table that fateful night, and he is determined to find out which one of them it is.
George plans to unmask the killer by holding a dinner one year after Rosemary's death in the restaurant where she died - ostensibly, as a birthday celebration for her younger sister Iris, who is now his ward. But when these six people sit down at the same table, laid with an empty place for the missing Rosemary, his plan goes horribly awry.
Sparkling Cyanide is a murder mystery with a twist on the 'locked room' scenario, that revolves around the death of the beautiful and rich Rosemary Barton, after she dies in spectacular style one night at the glamorous Luxembourg restaurant - in the company of her husband George, her sister Iris, two of her lovers (American hustler Anthony Browne and MP Stephen Farraday), Farraday's aristocratic wife Sandra, and George's secretary Ruth Lessing.
The story begins some months after the fateful night, when letters provoke Rosemary's nearest and dearest to look at her death in a different light: her sister Iris finds a note written by Rosemary to her mysterious lover called 'Leopard', and George receives an anonymous tip-off that his wife was murdered. It then it explodes into an array of narratives exposing the true feelings towards Rosemary of all the characters present on the night she died. Intriguingly, you only ever see Rosemary through the eyes of the other characters, and as her flaws are laid bare, you learn that despite her acknowledged beauty, the inner woman was far from perfect.
George becomes consumed by his need to find the person responsible for Rosemary's death, and against the advice of his wise old friend Colonel Race, he plans an anniversary dinner intended to force the killer to unmask themselves - which of course, goes wrong in true Christie style. The story then morphs into a twisty police investigation, headed up by the capable Chief Inspector Kemp with Colonel Race at his side.
This is a Christie mystery that keeps its cards very close to the chest, as everyone here is a convincing suspect. They all have something to hide, and what they reveal through their inner monologues and their conversations with each other informs and misleads in equal measure. The suspects spend their time being as elusive as they can while Kemp and Race try to get to the bottom of the affair, and unexpected allies eventually prove to be the key to solving the whole mystery.
Christie throws in a little bit of everything in this tale, with family drama, passion, secrets and lies deliciously flooding the whole story. She deftly explores the notion that still waters run deep, and that the face people show to the world can be very different to what lies under the surface, especially when it comes to the female cast. She also has some very caustic things to say about the kind of women who have a beautiful facade, but are hollow within.
I absolutely loved this story. It really kept me guessing, as I found myself constantly sifting through all the motives and possible opportunities to commit impossible murders without being able to identify the killer - until all became clear at the finale. This is Christie at the top of her devious game!
This book is my April choice for #ReadChristie2023 showcasing poisoning as a method for murder. I alternated between reading the paperback and listening to the first-class audio book voiced by one of my favourite Christie narrators Hugh Fraser.
Sparkling Cyanide is available to buy now in multiple formats.
About the author:
Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.
No comments:
Post a Comment