Cloudy with a Chance of Death: Death in the Clouds | 1935

This is the wonderful late 1960's/early 1970's cover art by Tom Adams, found at deliciousdeath.com

"'Supposing,' said Fournier, 'that when traveling in a train you were to pass a house in flames. Everyone's eyes would at once be drawn to the window. Everyone would have his attention fixed on a certain point. A man in such a moment might whip out a dagger and stab a man, and nobody would see him do it.'" - Death in the Clouds, p. 59

The Sum of It:

The summary on the first page of the version I read (which was published in America and sillily called Death in the Air instead of Agatha's original title Death in the Clouds, but we're going with the latter because it's obvi a better title, like why change it? Solve that mystery, Poirot) sets the scene quite dramatically:

"Twenty-one passengers are winging their

way across the English Channel.

Twenty are alive.

One passenger, Madame Giselle --

blackmailer, money-lender, woman with a

past -- is dead. Murdered.

How? Why? By whom?"

OOOOOOoooOOoooh what happened one wonders? Well the facts are basically as outlined there. Poirot is flying back (in an "air liner" which is described to have multiple cars, I honestly don't know what kind of vehicle this is supposed to be. I'm picturing the zeppelin from Indiana Jones but I feel like she would have called it a zeppelin if it was one so who knows, it could just be a regular airplane) to England from France, suffering mightily from an upset "estomac" on account of flying and him being so sensitive. Mid-flight, a woman dies and Poirot discovers a tiny poisoned dart that appears to be the murder weapon! 

The dead lady seems to have had some pretty risky info on lots of important wealthy Brits, including at least one of the plane's passengers. Problem being, the poison dart seems to have been fired from a blowpipe, found shoved behind Poirot's seat. No one takes seriously the idea that he could have been the culprit, but the whole team (which includes good ol' Inspector Japp) are baffled by how anyone could have fired a dart out of a blowpipe without a single person in the...air liner car... noticing #butforreal. 

As he is wont to do, Poirot befriends a young lady traveling in the air liner at the time of the murder, a miss Jane Grey, and engages her and her handsome young dentist friend, whom she met while on vacay and who was also aboard, to help him figure out #whodunnit. He and the other police types, French and English, spend a good deal of time investigating Madame Giselle's potential clients, as well as the passengers on the air liner, but it comes right down to the wire at the end of the story, and takes another #MURDER before Poirot finally figures out how this crime could have been committed, and which of his fellow passengers could have been the culprit.

The YOA Treatment:

So honestly my favorite thing about this one is the fact that this is the Agatha novel that the Doctor and Donna help inspire in the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp," featuring a fictional version of Agatha Christie and a wasp-like alien. At the end of the episode, the Doctor pulls out a copy of Death in the Clouds, published in the year 5 billion, to demonstrate to Donna that Agatha remains a beloved writer for all of history. (I really love the Doctor Who episodes where they're joined by historical characters, but this one is probably my favorite of that set). 

This particular tale, while of course a quality mystery and an easy read of a sunny afternoon in a hammock, didn't really stand out for me in terms of clever or engaging characters, or even a particularly surprising twist in the culprit reveal. While this is a Poirot book, it is not one of the ones narrated by Hastings. As Audrey noted in a recent post, you do kind of know what you'll get with Hastings' narration in terms of his obtuseness and terrible intuition about cases. I find though that the levity contributed by Hastings tends to add a layer of interest and enjoyment to a Poirot tale, especially if its one without a zingy, bon-mot-dropping, firebrand one-off sidekick #bringbackHastings #ishestillmarried #whathappenedinArgentina. 

On to the next!

-E.

2016: The Year of Agatha

Hi, we’re Audrey and Emily. The Year of Agatha is a project we conceived via text message in 2015 while simultaneously watching episodes of Marple in our respective homes. Agatha Christie has been one of the best known and best loved masters of mystery for almost 100 years. Since we both admit to being occasionally teased, nay, mocked for our devotion to almost century-old British mysteries, we wanted to explore what it is that makes her stories connect just as much with millennials as they did with the post-WWI readers who were her contemporaries.

To get ready for the project, we read Agatha’s self-titled autobiography to learn a little more about her life and her personality. Over the course of 2016, we’ll be reading all of Agatha’s mystery novels -- some we’ll divide and conquer and some we’ll team up on, like Hastings and Poirot (but with a less marked gap in intelligence). We’ll be documenting our thoughts on themes, plots and characters drawn from real life, whether Tommy & Tuppence are basically millennials, the number of times Hastings totally misses the boat, favorite side characters, the poor souls who find the bodies and whether they are similar to Law & Order cold-opens, and much more. On Saturdays and Mondays, we’ll provide a quick overview of each book, accompanied by our super-erudite analysis, and the occasional mood board of things we think Tuppence might buy while online shopping.

Audrey (aka Clawdrey), tell us about your life-long interest in Agatha and the inspiration for this project.
I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere Michigan which, bizarrely, had a fantastically extensive public library. One summer I discovered the Agatha Christie bookcase way in the back of that little library. Several big shelves housed her complete works, and I devoured each one in rapid succession. I can vividly remember reading Peril at End House in one sitting and coming to the end and being so excited that the Queen of Crime had dozens more of these glorious mysteries for me to read. My grandma would tape Masterpiece Mystery episodes of Poirot for me and I would watch them over and over until the tapes nearly wore out. Agatha Christie stories give me such a happy nostalgic feeling and I can't wait to relive all the mysterious memories with Emily this year!

Emily, why don’t you tell us about how you got into Agatha?

As a preteen, I also picked up a number of our lady’s greatest hits in my regular summertime library runs, familiarizing myself with some of the most well known mysteries in the canon, like And Then There Were None and Dumb Witness. Once I became friends with Audrey and we realized that we basically like 95% of the exact same things, she was shocked to realize that I had never watched David Suchet’s long-running BBC Poirot series, so naturally I watched them (as well as Marple) and of course became a devotee, reviving my interest in Agatha. Since then I’ve read a few more of the books, seen the Doctor Who where Agatha Christie helps the Doctor save everyone from a giant wasp alien, and gotten more curious about Mrs. Christie herself. When Audrey suggested we read all the books as a joint project, I was pumped to get to know Agatha and her stories better.

So if you’re out there, thanks for joining us! Let us know when we’re reading one of your favorites, share your theories about the stories, and discuss how all the Girl on the Train fans have Agatha to thank.

Tune in after January 9 for our first book post, a joint review from both of us on Agatha’s first two books, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary.