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emberology 's review for:
Sparkling Cyanide
by Agatha Christie
Re-read 26.09.2017 From 2 to 4 stars.
A person is murdered, although it's seemingly impossible, because it's done under the watchful eye of several people - my favorite kind of murder.
The identity of the murderer isn't actually a huge surprise, nor is the basic idea of the execution of the murder (it's very simple if you think about it), but a couple of things surrounding the latter poisoning incident and the way it was done are. The moral of the story is the classic "don't take anyone's word for it", and it's actually surprising that a certain statement wasn't verified immediately. The most successful aspect of Sparkling Cyanide is, however, Christie's characterization. All the people involved (except the investigators) feel alive with all their faults and grievances. Human.
I don't know why I gave this 2 stars originally, but it's possible it was an audiobook and the book itself got blamed if I got bored, or maybe I didn't appreciate the lengthy background portion dealing with each of the suspects. In any case, their stories are crucial. I do think that not only is this an unusual Colonel Race novel (like Superintendent Battle, not my favorite investigator, but I got a slightly better sense of who he is than I did of Battle), but also an unusual Christie novel in a broader sense, because the case is solved by someone else than the main investigator.
A person is murdered, although it's seemingly impossible, because it's done under the watchful eye of several people - my favorite kind of murder.
The identity of the murderer isn't actually a huge surprise, nor is the basic idea of the execution of the murder (it's very simple if you think about it), but a couple of things surrounding the latter poisoning incident and the way it was done are. The moral of the story is the classic "don't take anyone's word for it", and it's actually surprising that a certain statement wasn't verified immediately. The most successful aspect of Sparkling Cyanide is, however, Christie's characterization. All the people involved (except the investigators) feel alive with all their faults and grievances. Human.
I don't know why I gave this 2 stars originally, but it's possible it was an audiobook and the book itself got blamed if I got bored, or maybe I didn't appreciate the lengthy background portion dealing with each of the suspects. In any case, their stories are crucial. I do think that not only is this an unusual Colonel Race novel (like Superintendent Battle, not my favorite investigator, but I got a slightly better sense of who he is than I did of Battle), but also an unusual Christie novel in a broader sense, because the case is solved by someone else than the main investigator.