From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Sparkling Cyanide

Agatha Christie

Start date: July 1, 2021

Finish date: July 31, 2021

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Next in our Assorted Christies challenge.
[close] Next in our Assorted Christies challenge.

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 14 posts · 16 views

last updated Sep 02, 2025 12:08AM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
By Susan · 4 posts · 12 views

last updated Sep 01, 2025 04:16PM

What Members Thought

Jun 10, 2021 Susan in NC rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 stars- I don’t think I’ve read this Christie before, but I really enjoyed it - the murder method seemed familiar from a Poirot story.

This book opens up after the supposed suicide by cyanide of Rosemary Barton. She killed herself at a nightclub dining with friends, including her much older, adoring husband, her lover, another admirer, and her younger sister. The reader sees these characters and others reminiscing about Rosemary, and how it was impossible to believe she committed suicide- eve ...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Laura Anne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british-isles, mystery

For years, I didn't bother to read this because I thought I knew it. It's a rehash of the earlier short-story "Yellow Iris;" identical in places, but the solution does have a different twist. HOWEVER, it turned out to be one of my favorite Christie's. The way she lets you into the minds of the characters really makes this one engrossing. And she hands the solution to the reader on a silver platter; but she kept me second guessing myself all the same, thinking it couldn't be so simple. ...more

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Feb 02, 2024 Laurie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read

This one isn’t in my usual rotation for some reason - I hadn’t read it in so long that I had absolutely no memory of it at all - but the solution really is very elegant! The way the book starts is unusual for Agatha Christie, with much more time spent on character and relationships than on the mystery, but eventually that part does pick up.

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