A Pocket Full of Rye (Miss Marple Mysteries) (Paperback)

by Agatha Christie (Author) "It was Miss Somers' turn to make the tea..." (more)
Key Phrases: Inspector Neele, Miss Marple, Mary Dove (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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This is the best of the best of the novels starring Christie's...Miss Marple. -- New York Times

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This is the best of the best of the novels starring Christie's...Miss Marple. (New York Times)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Signet (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451199863
• ISBN-13: 978-0451199867
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #100,457 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 7 in The Miss Marple Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not many suspects, but buckets full of red herrings., May 30, 2001

By	John Austin "[e-mail]" (Kangaroo Ground, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Pocket Full of Rye (Audio Cassette)

Almost every formula, idea, and trick that Agatha Christie used in her detective fiction works proved to be entirely successful and won her an enormous reading public. Making use of nursery rhymes was one such formula. Nursery rhymes can reawaken the sense of wonder, mystery and enchantment in any reader. They also can carry symbolic levels of meaning, and some are allegories.

In this her 1953 offering she makes use of the nursery rhyme "Sing A Song Of Sixpence". Appropriately it is one of her Miss Marple books. Although her elderly spinster sleuth has little to do here, and is late making her appearance, it is she who perceives and urges the significance of the nursery rhyme. "Don't you see, it makes a pattern to all this."

The murders occur in the disfunctional family of Rex Fortescue, a financier, and the action occurs in his London office and in the family home, Yew Tree Lodge. The opening chapters are wonderfully engaging. Agatha Christie, when she took the trouble, could sketch characters vividly. Amongst all of them in this book, there are not more than a handful of suspects. To compensate, Mrs Christie throws in buckets full of red herrings.

You'll enjoy the puzzle, and having innumerable theories suggested and dismissed. The solution, when it comes, however, is no more plausible than is the likelihood of a blackbird pecking off a maid's nose.

If you can obtain the unabridged reading of the book by Rosemary Leach, your enjoyment will be enhanced. Rosemary Leach is unusually skilled at "doing" the voices of a large cast of characters, male and female.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Enjoyable High Tea With Dame Agatha, August 25, 2002

By	Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

When an unpleasant businessman is taken ill at his London office and subsequently dies of taxine poisoning, authorities discover a house full of likely suspects: a young, sexy wife having an affair; a money grubbing son worried about his father's management of the family business; an angry daughter frustrated in love by her father's control. But no sooner do police suspicions begin to form around one of the three than murder strikes again--and then again--in such a way as to leave them baffled. Enter, of course, Miss Marple, who sets about uncovering a killer who may be a psychotic that is killing victims in accordance with the old "Sing a Song of Sixpence" nursey rhyme.

Most of Christie's great novels were written in the 1930s and 1940s. Although she could still create a stunner when she wished, with A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED a case in point, by the 1950s Christie favored a less complicated approach, preferring to write novels that might be described as creamy confections for a very civilized high tea. A POCKET FULL OF RYE is perhaps the perfect example. Like most Christie novels, the plot is extremely contrived--but in this instance she makes no effort to conceal the contrivance; it is a shell game, pure and simple and without pretension, a game undertaken for the pleasure of it. And when Christie sets out to write a novel for the pure fun of it, there is always a great deal of fun to be had. This will never rank among her greatest works, but fans will devour it in a single sitting and feel as satisified as if they had just enjoyed a blow-out of cream buns. Thoroughly enjoyable.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WILL SOMEONE LET THE WOMAN SPEAK?, May 10, 2008

By	allitwantedbythunder - See all my reviews

What "improvements" have been made for the Signet edition? There are already major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There are further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further additions still in the Bantam, Berkley, and Black Dog & Leventhal editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.