I was prepared to not like A Pocket Full Of Rye - simply because it's not as well known. In fact, I found it one of the better reads, with an intricate plot I worked hard to try and break, without success!
Rex Fortesque is a stockbroker who keels over in his well-appointed private office - possibly from Taxine poison in his morning tea? The drug is derived from the Yew tree, several of which surround his country home Yewtree Lodge. When Inspector Neele arrives there he finds Mr. Fortesque's sexy second wife Adele, her escort Vivian Dubois, his son Percival's wife, his daughter Ellen, Mary Dove the housekeeper, and his reclusive old mother in an upstairs apartment. All, Inspector Neele would point out "very unpleasant people", which I found unusual for a Marple novel.
Soon his son Percival returns from Scotland to become head of the house. The second son Lancelot is coincidentally returning from Kenya with his new wife and arrives shortly. During the next few days a deadly cyanide poisoning occurs, and a mousy young maid is strangled amidst the laundry lines in the garden. When Miss Marple sees in the paper the strangled girl was once her maid, she visits Yewtree Lodge to help the gracious Inspector Neele.
While Marple is not the lead detective in the mystery, she does have a background role as a guest of the family, and finds out all the buried history a policeman could not. Who would inherit the failing family fortune? Does it have something to do with the Blackbird gold mine? The deaths fit the nursery rhyme Sing A Song Of Sixpence, so it could be the vengeful work of children who are now grown. Everyone in the house is trying to conceal a secret which made my detection work harder.
The unusual thing about this mystery was the characters. Marple usually stays with friends, generally nice people involved with danger, but in Rye all the characters are miserable or unlikeable. Made for a nice change.
It took me longer to finish Rye, as I was paying studious attention to the clues, often re-reading a page to see I didn't overlook anything. There are relatively few characters and several plausible scenarios are presented in a deceptively simple and forthright way it seemed, so why didn't I figure it out? I found it so tightly plotted that I couldn't break it.
For me, Rye turned out to be one of the best Christies, just after The Body In The Library. A pleasure to be 'stumped', and in the dark until the last few pages.
1953 / Tradeback / 239 pages
Commentaires