Spider's Web [Mass Market Paperback]

Charles Osborne (Adapter), Agatha Christie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2001

Clarissa, the young wife of a foreign office diplomat, delights in tweaking the sensibilities of her more serious friends by playing a game she calls "supposing"--imagining a difficult situation and finding out how people would respond. But Clarissa's lighthearted games becomes deadly serious when she discovers the body of an unknown person in her own drawing room. If that weren't bad enough, her husband is on the way home with an important foreign politician. Clarissa decides to dispose of the body and persuades her three houseguests to help. But before she can get the corpse off the premises, a policeman knocks at her front door. Now Clarissa must keep the body hidden, convince the skeptical police inspector that there has been no murder, and, in the meantime, find out who has been murdered, why, and what the body is doing in her house...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Osborne completes his homage to Christie with this third and final adaptation of an original Christie play, following Black Coffee (1998) and The Unexpected Guest (1999). Though the play was written in 1954, the story suffers little from the passage of time, and aside from the static setting, reads well as a novel. Christie's exquisite timing and clever sleight-of-mind tricks are a delight, while Osborne has the good sense not to embroider the tale. A typical closed cast of characters occupies the temporary country home of Henry and Clarissa Hailsham-Brown: the seemingly scatterbrained Clarissa; her stepdaughter, Pippa; the odious Oliver Costello, who has married Pippa's mother; Sir Rowland Delahaye, Clarissa's godfather and a man of honor; an outspoken gardener; a butler; a cook; and Inspector Lord, the rather diffident policeman. When Clarissa discovers a body in the drawing room, she decides that it mustn't be found there. Her plans to dispose of the body are interrupted by the arrival of a rather diffident policeman, Inspector Lord, who has come to check out an anonymous tip that a murder has been committed. Christie's bag of tricks includes hidden doorways, secret drawers, French windows and concealed identitiesDall used to amusing effect. As with Osborne's previous novelizations, this is a welcome addition to the Christie canon and is sure to reach mystery bestseller lists. The cover, with a spider in a web against a green faux-marble background, is as catchy as they come. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This third and last of Christie's plays to be novelized by Osborne--following Black Coffee (1998) and The Unexpected Guest (1999)--betrays its origins in its crisp dialogue and smooth action. Twists, turns, and things that are not what they seem abound, of course, as Clarissa, the younger second wife of Henry Hailsham-Brown, amuses herself in deception and flirtation in their rented country home. However, when the current spouse of Henry's first wife, an odious sort, turns up dead at her very feet, Clarissa must be resourceful indeed. Her young stepdaughter hated and feared the dead man, and Henry himself is bringing home a diplomat on a secret mission, so the whole thing must be cleared up posthaste. Despite Clarissa's best efforts, the police show up, and a series of deceptions within deceptions foment a neat, exaggerated, and quite attractive puzzle. Another Christie on the bookshelf, huzzah. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks; 1st edition (August 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312979509
• ISBN-13: 978-0312979508
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #546,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Christie, Agatha

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Christie Adaption, October 20, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spider's Web (Hardcover)

In Cobblestone Court, Henry and Clarissa Hailsham-Brown host three guests: Sir Rowland Delahaye, Hugo Birch, and Jeremy Warrender. However, Clarissa soon discovers the corpse of an unknown guest in the drawing room. Knowing her spouse plans to bring home a bigwig, Clarissa decides to hide the body until she can get around to figuring what to do next. In the course of temporarily disposing the deceased, police Inspector Lord arrives, stating he received a tip that murder occurred here.

Clarissa revises her plan to include keeping the police from knowing that someone was in deed murdered in her home. She continues to serve as a gracious host to her guests and her spouse's dinner company while at the same time deciding to uncover the identities of the body and the killer by herself.

SPIDER'S WEB, the third adaptation of an Agatha Christie play to a novel (see BLACK COFFEE and THE UNEXPECTED GUEST), is pure 100-proof Christie and not lite. The story line contains the elements that have made the renowned author so beloved. Fans of Ms. Christie and anyone who enjoys a featherbrained English amateur sleuth will fully enjoy this tale that shows Charles Osborne fully understands the grandmistress of mystery.

Harriet Klausner

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can you adapt?, November 11, 2004

By 

Neal J. Pollock (VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spider's Web (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the 3rd and final Osborne adaptation of an Agatha Christie play into novel form. I liked it the best of the three. It reads more like a play than a novel--so if you are expecting the normal Christie novel, you may very well be disappointed. However, if you have read the novels, this is a lovely addition to your list of Christie's and a rare opportunity to envision her plays. True, the plays could just as easily have been bound and published. But, Osborne has apparently done little, if anything, to detract from the plays themselves. So, IMHO, he has done a great service both to Agatha and to the mystery reading public by publishing these works. As for the content, this particular work is a riot! I loved the story, the twists and turns (and there are many of them), the cleverness, etc. It IS after all, a Christie! And a very good one at that. Enjoy!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What would Dame Agatha have thought about this?, January 22, 2001

By 

kellytwo "kellytwo" (cleveland hts, ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spider's Web (Hardcover)

The question here is: Is watered-down Agatha Christie as satisfying as the real thing? My answer is: Not hardly.

Had this book been a 150-page $4.95 paperback, I might have a different opinion; as a stretched-out 219-page hard-cover selling for $23.95, it's a wonderful lesson in padding. I read it in one sitting--slightly less than two hours--and found myself afterwards wondering why.

I'm not sure that novelizing a play is a really worthwhile adventure. On stage, after all, one doesn't need descriptions of things or people in order to comprehend or understand them. One of Christie's specializations was her depth of characterization, and this is totally lacking here. There is almost no description--of anything, including motivation, which was another of her strengths.

There is humor in this tale of a British Country House party, with the appropriate twists and turns to the plot to make it an engaging and different sort of tale. It is definitely a period piece--written in 1954, but clearly harking back to the early 30s in mannerisms, if not in fact. When a murder happens, it nearly turns into a farce, what with the body disappearing on a regular basis.

As a light, quick read, it is enjoyable, but I kept thinking that, because of its simplicity, it could almost be more successful if marketed as a young adult or new reader book. On the other hand, if the book brings new readers to Christie's large catalog, nicely listed at the beginning of the book, then it will have succeeded admirably. The three stars I've given the book are in no way to be construed as disrespectful of Dame Agatha or her work, or that of the novel-izer, Charles Osborne, who has previously done the same to two of Christie's other plays. Rather, they are an expression of dissatisfaction with the publisher for the stretching out and over-pricing of this volume.