A Pocket Full of Rye is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 9 November 1953 and in the US by Dodd, Mead & Co. the following year. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6)

Maurice Richardson in The Observer (15 November 1953) posited, "Not quite so stunning as some of Mrs Christie's criminal assaults upon her readers; the soufflé rises all right, but the red herrings aren't quite nifty enough. But how well she nearly always writes, the dear decadent old death-trafficker; they ought to make her a Dame or a D. Litt."

Robert Barnard said of the characters that "Super-stockbrokerbelt setting, and quite exceptionally nasty family of suspects. (Christie usually prefers to keep most of her characters at least potentially sympathetic as well as potential murderers, but here they are only the latter)." He felt that the plot was "Something of a re-run of Hercule Poirot's Christmas (loathsome father, goody-goody son, ne'er-do-well son, gold-digger wife, etc.), but without its tight construction and ingenuity. And the rhyme is an irrelevancy." His bottom line on this novel was that "Still, a good, sour read."

Poison

The aril, the fleshy part of the berry, is the only part of the yew that is non-toxic. The seeds inside the berry contain a high concentration of taxine and are poisonous if chewed. Pets that chew on yew branches or leaves have become ill.

Adaptations

Secret of the Blackbirds (1983), a Soviet film adaptation, was unknown outside of the USSR due to multiple copyright issues.

A Pocket Full of Rye was the fourth transmitted story in the BBC series of Miss Marple adaptations, starring Joan Hickson as the elderly sleuth. It was first broadcast in two parts on 7 & 8 March 1985. Filming date is Autumn 1984. Michael Bakewell's 90-minute adaptation for BBC radio was first broadcast in 1995; it starred June Whitfield as Miss Marple.

The novel was adapted for the fourth series of the British television series Agatha Christie's Marple broadcast on ITV on 6 September 2009, starring Julia McKenzie as the title character.

Publication history

The novel was first serialised, heavily abridged, in the UK in the Daily Express starting on Monday 28 September, running for fourteen instalments until Tuesday 13 October 1953.

The novel was first serialised in the US in the Chicago Tribune in forty-two parts from Monday, 11 January to Saturday, 27 February 1954.

References

  • A Pocket Full of Rye at the official Agatha Christie website