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Although we have a bit of a love/hate relationship with short stories (#trueconfessions), we have enjoyed getting to know more about Agatha Christie's writing process by seeing how her sprightly, easy-to-read style and enthralling plots fit into both short story and novel form. Many times we have seen Agatha almost doing a trial run of plot ideas in a short format, which she then fleshes out into a full-length novel. Some notable examples are "Triangle at Rhodes"/Evil Under the Sun, "The Case of the Caretaker"/Endless Night, and, most pertinent to this month, "Yellow Iris"/Sparkling Cyanide (also known as Remembered Death).
Emily recently read "Yellow Iris" in The Regatta Mystery collection and obvi the inspiration is clear, from the settings to the style of murder to the characters... with one notable exception: NO POIROT IN CYANIDE! Another familiar mystery solver, Colonel Race, who is a friend of Poirot's, gets to be on the case in Sparkling Cyanide, while good ol' Hercule solves the mystery in "Yellow Iris." We aren't sure exactly why Agatha ditched Poirot for the novel version of this whodunnit, but we do know that she found him infuriating and regularly wished she wasn't stuck with him, so maybe she wrote Sparkling Cyanide during one of their tiffs!
We have so enjoyed reading Sparkling Cyanide this month with the Maidens of Murder! Be sure to head over to their Instagram (@maidensofmurder) tomorrow to for a discussion of the book! We'll also be posting our recap here on the blog over the weekend.
Happy reading!
-A. & E.
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