Sparkling Cyanide in Reading the Detectives

Jun 27, 2021 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

For some reason I can't recall reading this Agatha Christie before and am glad I read it. The mystery is set a year after a dinner party saw Rosemary Barton die at the table - poisoned, with the inquest suggesting it was self-administered.

Husband George, gentle, slow and kind, had never thought that his beautiful, glamorous wife, Rosemary, really loved him. However, it still hurt when she began to have flirtations. Or, was one of those flirtations more serious? When he receives an anonymous sugg ...more

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Jul 02, 2021 Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: agatha-christie, mystery, british, murder

Sparkling Cyanide is one of four Christie books in which Col. Race appears. We meet him at different stages in his life in different books. An army-man who has been among other places, in India, Race is also an MI 5 operative. As part of a group challenge reading lesser known Christie books, of which this was one entry, I also re-read earlier in the year The Man in the Brown Suit where Race is relatively younger, and even proposes to one of the characters (in fact, he could well be a suspect in Sparkling Cyanide is one of four Christie books in which Col. Race appears. We meet him at different stages in his life in different books. An army-man who has been among other places, in India, Race is also an MI 5 operative. As part of a group challenge reading lesser known Christie books, of which this was one entry, I also re-read earlier in the year The Man in the Brown Suit where Race is relatively younger, and even proposes to one of the characters (in fact, he could well be a suspect in that one). In Sparkling Cyanide, he is 60, and actively participates in the investigation. (In two other books, he appears with Poirot).

In this book, a year before the events of story take place, Rosemary Barton, young, wealthy (she had inherited a vast fortune from her godfather) very beautiful but not very bright was at a party thrown for her birthday by her and her husband, the kindly but much older George at the Luxembourg restaurant. The other guests were Rosemary’s younger sister Iris Marle, politician Stephen Farraday and his wife Lady Alexandra, the handsome and charming Anthony Browne, a friend of Rosemary, and Ruth Lessing, George’s trusted assistant. Rosemary was just recovering from the ‘flu and somewhat depressed, so when she fell down dead at her table, having consumed potassium cyanide in her champagne, the verdict was suicide.

But some months after that shocking occurrence, George Barton begins to receive anonymous letters claiming that Rosemary never committed suicide but was murdered. George who loved his wife very much despite being well aware of her character, decides to take matters into his own hands and sets what he thinks will be a trap for the killer, recreating the events of the previous year—a party at the same restaurant, with the same guests, same table and possibly food—only one empty chair where Rosemary would have been. The excuse is Iris’ birthday. George goes ahead with his plans despite a warning from his friend Col. Race whom he had also invited, and history repeats itself, as another of the party dies, in just the same way.

The police in the form of Inspector Kemp (who we are informed had worked under another Christie regular, Superintendent Battle), and Col. Race begin to investigate the deaths, visiting and speaking to not only the guests at the party but also other characters like prior employees in the Barton home, Lucilla Drake, the poor cousin who has been invited to live with George for he asks Iris to continue to live with him, and others who were out dining at the Luxembourg that night. Can Kemp and Race identify whodunit?

This was actually rather different in its structure from other Christie books—we have the book divided into three sections: in the first we ‘meet’ each of the characters who were at the Rosemary’s birthday party that fateful evening. We learn about how they viewed her, their relationship with her, filled in most cases with resentment or complaint, even though she seemed to have been much adored by them all. The second segment covers George’s attempts at trapping the murderer and the second tragedy that occurs, while the third is the investigation by Kemp and Race.

The first segment reminded me very much of another Christie I read earlier this year, Ordeal by Innocence, for like in that book, this gives us an opportunity to get into our characters’ minds, understand their thoughts, and their motivations (and possible reasons for killing Rosemary), which don’t come through in her usual stories where we are viewing characters from the detective’s (or a third person’s) perspective. This makes it somewhat more interesting if one is trying to work out the solution for oneself.

The mystery element in the book I thought was very well done; though we have some clues (mostly to personality traits) which might help us guess whodunit, the solution is fairly complicated and despite having read the book before (too long ago to remember much), I was on the wrong track on many things. We have of course, more than one character with a secret, but may be not as many red herrings as there sometimes are. For motives there are all the usual reasons—love (and hate), jealousy, secrets and money but which was it that finally drove the killer? Christie managed to surprise me as always.

The investigation too, was interesting to watch unfold. Race and Kemp must tread carefully for some of the suspects—Stephen and Lady Alexandra are influential and well connected. They, particularly Race, seems to follow the same path as Poirot does giving the people he is speaking to the chance to talk, and in the processes picking up usual information and uncovering secrets. But it isn’t Race that ultimately solves the mystery…

The book made for really good reading with a cast of characters with very different personalities, a complicated mystery, and a solution that I certainly didn’t see coming.
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Jun 03, 2018 Anissa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, series, british-fiction-uk-ireland, cozy-mystery

In my further quest to read all the Christies, I picked up Sparkling Cyanide. As it happens this publication has a great cover so that pulled me in as well. The situation here is that Rosemary Barton is a year dead and her husband George is sure (after a series of letters) that she did not commit suicide as the inquest determined, but was murdered. He gathers together the people who were in attendance at her birthday dinner the night of her death to find the killer. It goes terribly and now it's ...more

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Nov 19, 2020 Kavita rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It was a wonderful experience to read a Christie without any clue about what is going to happen next! Usually, I just know word to word almost every book. Even when I am not so familiar, I have a basic idea about it. I have been reading Christies since childhood, some of them multiple times, and it's just there at the back of my head. I have zero memory of Sparkling Cyanide, though I am pretty sure I have read it before. It must be delightful for people having several books left to read for the ...more

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Mar 27, 2022 Lady Wesley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-golden-age-or-similar, listened, chirpbooks

This is a perfect Christie for me. 1930s setting. A touch of glamor. Interesting characters. Colonel Race is an excellent substitute for Poirot. Ingenious murder.

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Aug 28, 2019 ShanDizzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Colonel Race said"Good show.”“That,” said Anthony as the door closed behind him, “denotes supreme British approval.”

“Let me summarize the position. There was no positive evidence as to a disposition to suicide, or to any preparation for it. The whole thing was negative. But there can also have been no positive evidence pointing to murder, or the police would have got hold of it. They’re quite wide awake, you know.”

The contrast between that and the gay lovely Rosemary of the day before . . . Wel Colonel Race said"Good show.”“That,” said Anthony as the door closed behind him, “denotes supreme British approval.”

“Let me summarize the position. There was no positive evidence as to a disposition to suicide, or to any preparation for it. The whole thing was negative. But there can also have been no positive evidence pointing to murder, or the police would have got hold of it. They’re quite wide awake, you know.”

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? 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 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.

Did George suspect that Rosemary and Stephen Farraday had been something more than friends? Was this a strange manifestation of postmortem jealousy?...Stephen had never noticed him much in the time preceding Rosemary’s death. George had just been there in the background, the kindly dull husband of a young and beautiful wife. Stephen had never even felt a pang of disquiet over the betrayal of George. George had been the kind of husband who was born to be betrayed. So much older—so devoid of the attractions necessary to hold an attractive and capricious woman. Had George himself been deceived? Stephen did not think so. George, he thought, knew Rosemary very well. He loved her, and he was the kind of man who was humble about his own powers of holding a wife’s interest. All the same, George must have suffered.

(Stephen thought of Rosemary) - He looked at her with eyes from which the last traces of scales had fallen. A lovely creature with the brains of a hen! ...more

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Jul 05, 2021 Frances rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-series

This was a fun Christie mystery featuring one of her lesser known/lesser used sleuths, Colonel Race, who has a much lower profile in his cases than Poirot or Marple. It's a typical Christie set up with a relatively closed group of suspects and the usual twist in the solution. Enjoy! ...more

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Nov 08, 2014 Damaskcat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A year ago Rosemary dies of cyanide poisoning at a fashionable restaurant. Now George, her widower, wants to stage the party again with the same guests and an empty place for Rosemary. He is advised by an old friend - Colonel Race - not to do it and Race himself refuses to attend the party. George has been prompted to restage it because he has received anonymous letters saying his wife was murdered. Instead of going to the police he wants to frighten the murderer into revealing themselves.

A lot ...more

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Feb 09, 2023 Sarah G rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I really rather enjoyed this - good characters and a good plot. Colonel Race is somewhat superfluous to solving the crime but that is by the by.

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May 26, 2017 Diana rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, reread, read-in-2017, read-in-2021

Not my favorite Agatha Christie, but still entertaining, because, well, it's an Agatha Christie. In rereading this I noticed what a good job she does of spreading suspicion over all the main characters. Everyone has a motive and an opportunity to do the murder.

This is one of, I believe, four Colonel Race mysteries. Race showed up in one or two Poirot books, too. ...more

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Apr 17, 2018 Pranit rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: agatha-christie

Sparkling Cyanide follows a story of ruthless murders taking place in the house with none the wiser. As usual, I’m always amazed by the creativity & the story-telling skills of Dame Christie!

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