Second parargraph of third chapter:
He whispered to Mitchell and the latter nodded, and – pushing his way through the passengers – he took up his stand in the doorway leading past the wash rooms to the front car.
An Agatha Christie novel that is both fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating because it shows the early days of commercial air flight, something that we take for granted today but that was pretty new in 1935. A flight from Paris to London cost about £8 (£500 in today’s money); you got full steward service during the trip (lucky if you can get a beaker of water on that route today).
Also, coming back to one of my other Christie interests, the heroine is Jane Grey, who we are told grew up in an orphanage near Dublin and was able to afford the trip to France after winning the Irish Sweepstake lottery; but if she sounds Irish, nobody mentions it.
On the other hand, the resolution of this locked-door mystery is particularly unfair by Christie standards. The motivation of the murderer is cloaked in obscurity and involves crucial information that is not revealed to the reader until the dénouement. And the means by which the murder turns out to have been accomplished are particularly convoluted and frankly improbable. It’s one of those cases where Christie’s portrayal of the world of the 1930s is much more interesting than the mystery turns out to be.
You can get Death in the Clouds here.
Agatha Christie:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles | The Secret Adversary | The Murder on the Links | The Man in the Brown Suit | The Murder of Roger Ackroyd | The Big Four | The Mystery of the Blue Train | The Murder at the Vicarage | Murder on the Orient Express | Death in the Clouds | The A.B.C. Murders | Murder in Mesopotamia | Cards on the Table | Death on the Nile | Appointment With Death | Hercule Poirot’s Christmas | And Then There Were None | Evil Under the Sun | The Body in the Library | Five Little Pigs | Crooked House | A Murder Is Announced | 4.50 from Paddington | Hallowe’en Party
