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Sparkling Cyanide

Sparkling Cyanide

ClassicsCrime
Pages
288
Published
1945
Language
English

Synopsis

Beautiful, wealthy Rosemary Barton collapses and dies at her own birthday dinner in a fashionable London restaurant, cyanide in her champagne. The inquest records suicide, attributing it to depression following influenza, and the people seated around the table return to their lives. A year later, Rosemary's widower, George, receives anonymous letters insisting that his wife was murdered. Convinced and increasingly obsessed, he resolves to gather the same six guests for a second dinner staged in her memory, hoping the reconstruction will force the truth into the open. Each of the surviving guests carries a private reason to have wished Rosemary gone, and the early chapters move through their memories in turn, revealing a web of love affairs, jealousy, money, and ambition that the dead woman left behind. When the memorial dinner ends in a fresh tragedy, Colonel Race, a friend of the family with a background in intelligence work, joins Chief Inspector Kemp to untangle who sat at the table with the intent to kill and how the poison was delivered without anyone noticing. The investigation tests every alibi and motive, weighing the rising politician, the watchful wife, the devoted secretary, the secretive admirer, and the grieving younger sister against one another. Built from shifting perspectives that circle the same evening, the story keeps its solution balanced on small observations until the final pages.

Prose complexity
3/10

Vibe

TenseIntellectualAtmosphericDark
BetrayalLove TriangleMultiple POVsMorally GreyRevenge

Genres

Classics Crime Mystery Thriller

About the author

A
Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the best-selling novelist of all time and the writer the world calls the "Queen of Crime." Born Agatha Miller in Torquay, Devon, she came to fiction on a dare: her sister Madge bet she could not write a convincing detective story, and the result, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Her dispensing work in a hospital pharmacy during the First World War, repeated again during the Second, gave her the expert knowledge...

Characters

Rosemary BartonSupporting

Glamorous and indulged, she is recalled differently by each person around the table, her charm tangled with the affairs and resentments she left behind

George BartonSupporting

Earnest and not especially clever, his fixation on anonymous letters drives him to a reckless reconstruction of the fatal evening

Iris MarleSupporting

Quieter and more thoughtful than her sister, she possesses the intelligence Rosemary lacked and stands to inherit the family fortune

Colonel RaceSupporting

Reserved and methodical, he brings a counter-intelligence eye to a domestic crime in what is his final appearance in Christie's work

Chief Inspector KempSupporting

Steady and professional, he works the procedural angles while Race reads the people

All characters in Sparkling Cyanide

Frequently asked questions

  • Is this an Agatha Christie novel, and does Hercule Poirot appear?

    Yes, it is a Christie novel published in 1945, but Poirot does not appear. The investigator is Colonel Race, a recurring Christie character. The book grew out of an earlier Poirot short story, and Christie replaced Poirot with Race for the full-length version.

  • Why does the book have two different titles?

    It was published in the United States by Dodd, Mead in early 1945 as "Remembered Death," and in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club later the same year under Christie's original title, "Sparkling Cyanide." Both refer to the same novel.

  • What earlier work is this novel based on?

    It expands Christie's earlier short story "Yellow Iris," which featured Hercule Poirot. The novel keeps the core situation of a poisoned dinner but swaps Poirot for Colonel Race and alters the solution, so the short story does not spoil the book.

  • Where does the title come from?

    The poison is cyanide delivered in champagne, giving the novel its title. The American title, "Remembered Death," instead draws on the book's recurring theme of remembrance and the line "rosemary for remembrance."

  • How is the novel structured?

    It is built in three parts. The first, "Rosemary," gives a chapter to each of the six dinner guests as they recall the dead woman; the second, "All Souls' Day," covers the memorial dinner; and the third, "Iris," follows the investigation led by Colonel Race and Inspector Kemp.

  • Is this part of a series, and where does it fall?

    It is one of Christie's Colonel Race novels and is notable as Race's final appearance in her fiction. It reads as a complete standalone and does not require knowledge of the earlier Race books.

  • Has it been adapted for screen or radio?

    Yes. The novel was adapted as a 1983 American television film and again as a 2003 British television film, and BBC Radio 4 produced a radio dramatisation in 2012. The related short story "Yellow Iris" was also filmed for the ITV Poirot series.

  • Is this a good entry point for new Christie readers?

    It is approachable as a standalone with a clear puzzle and a small cast, though some readers prefer the better-known Poirot and Marple titles as a first taste of Christie. No prior reading is required.

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