Book Review: Death in the Clouds (1935)

After taking a short break from Agatha Christie novels, I decided to get this book on Kindle last week, largely because I remember it being mentioned in a Doctor Who episode. I wound up finishing it last night (while, once again, sitting at an ice rink) and have to admit the book exceeded my expectations.

When I first started reading this book, I was somewhat doubtful about it. This is because, after the first few chapters, I was convinced I had figured out who the killer was and, as a result of that, I temporarily lost interest.

However, as I continued to read the book, I realized Christie was working extra hard at this mystery and my original theory wasn't nearly as sound as I thought it was. In fact, I must confess, even after "amending" my theory a couple of times based on new evidence, I wasn't even close to identifying the real killer.

I think the thing that really helps this mystery is the lack of information about the victim. All anyone knows about Madame Giselle is she loaned money to rich people and used their deepest, darkest secrets as collateral. However, since she had her assistant burn all her papers upon her death, Poirot can only guess at who her clients were. This, along with the mystery about her past life, left a lot of room for a suspect to come out of nowhere.

The way she was murdered also proved to be much more complicated than I originally thought. I kind of figured the blowgun behind Poirot's seat was a red herring. But, there were a number of ways that dart could have struck her, including being shot from any pipe-like object (like a cigarette holder) to being stabbed into her by hand. This ultimately created a lot more suspects on the plane than I first thought.

The part about the bee being on the plane was also interesting. At first, I wasn't really sure if it had anything to do with Madame Giselle's murder. But, since Poirot kept bringing it up, it was obvious he believed it did and, since I had no idea why, it did keep me reading.

I had some doubts about this book when I first started reading it. But, it turned out to be a better mystery than I was expecting and would be among my favorite Agatha Christie novels as a result.

My Grade: A