Death in the Clouds is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, published in 1935. It features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp. It is a "closed circle" murder mystery: the victim is a passenger on a cross-Channel aircraft flight, and the perpetrator can only be one of eleven fellow-passengers and crew.

The book was first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company on 10 March 1935 under the title of Death in the Air and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in July of the same year under Christie's original title. The US edition retailed at $2.00

The Times in its main paper gave the book a second review in its issue of 2 July 1935 when they described its plot as "ingenious" and commented on the fact that Christie had evolved a method of presenting a crime in a confined space (with reference to The Mystery of the Blue Train and Murder on the Orient Express) which "however often employed, never loses its originality."

Isaac Anderson in The New York Times Book Review of 24 March 1935 began his column:

In The Observers issue of 30 June 1935, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers) started his review, "My admiration for Mrs. Christie is such that with each new book of hers I strain every mental nerve to prove that she has failed, at last, to hypnotize me. On finishing Death in the Clouds, I found that she had succeeded even more triumphantly than usual." He concluded, "I hope that some readers of this baffling case will foresee at least the false denouement. I did not even do that. Agatha Christie has recently developed two further tricks: one is, as of the juggler who keeps on dropping things, to leave a clue hanging out for several chapters, apparently unremarked by her little detective though seized on by us, and then to tuck it back again as unimportant. Another is to give us some, but by no means all, of the hidden thoughts of her characters. We readers must guard against these new dexterities. As for Poirot, it is only to him and to Cleopatra that a certain remark about age and custom is strictly applicable. But might not Inspector Japp be allowed to mellow a little, with the years, beyond the moron stage?"

An admirer of Christie, Milward Kennedy of The Guardian began his review of 30 July 1935, "Very few authors achieve the ideal blend of puzzle and entertainment as often does Agatha Christie." He did admit that, "Death in the Clouds may not rank with her greatest achievements, but it is far above the average detective story." He finished by saying, "Mrs Christie provides a little gallery of thumb-nail sketches of plausible characters; she gives us all the clues and even tells us where to look for them; we ought to find the murderer by reason, but are not likely to succeed except by guesswork."

A review in the Daily Mirror of 20 July 1935 concluded, "We leave Poirot to figure it all out. He is at it and in it, with his usual brilliance, till the end."

Robert Barnard: "Exceptionally lively specimen, with wider than usual class and type-range of suspects. Scrupulously fair, with each clue presented openly and discussed. Note Clancy the crime writer, and the superiority of French police to British (no signs of insularity here)."

Main characters

  • Hercule Poirot, Belgian private detective. Passenger on the aeroplane.
  • Jane Grey, hairdresser. Passenger on the aeroplane.
  • Cicely, Countess of Horbury ( Bland). Passenger on the aeroplane. In debt to Madame Giselle.
  • Norman Gale, a dentist. Passenger on the aeroplane.
  • The Hon. Venetia Kerr. Passenger on the aeroplane.
  • Roger Bryant, a doctor.
  • Armand Dupont, an archaeologist. Passenger on the aeroplane.
  • Jean Dupont, his son and flying companion.
  • Daniel Clancy, author of detective novels. Passenger on the aeroplane.
  • Henry Mitchell, air steward on the flight from Paris.
  • Albert Davis, Mitchell's assistant.
  • Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard, officially investigates the case.
  • Fournier, a Sûreté detective.
  • Elise Grandier, Madame Giselle's maid.
  • Anne Morisot, a.k.a. Richards. On the flight as "Madeleine", Lady Horbury's maid; daughter of Madame Giselle, arrives from Canada.

References or allusions

References to other works

  • In Chapter 6, Monsieur Fournier makes reference to Monsieur Giraud, the French detective whom Poirot meets in Murder on the Links.
  • In Chapter 7, Poirot refers to a case of poisoning in which the killer uses a "psychological" moment to his advantage, an allusion to Three Act Tragedy.
  • In Chapter 21, Poirot refers to a case in which all the suspects were lying, an allusion to Murder on the Orient Express.

References in other works

  • In Chapter 12 of a later Poirot novel, Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952), Christie's alter ego, Ariadne Oliver, refers to a novel of hers in which she made a blowpipe one foot long, only to be told later that they were six feet long. This was a belated but sly and self-referential acknowledgement of a fundamental error in the plot of Death in the Clouds.

Allusions to real life

  • An event experienced by Christie herself, shortly after her second marriage (to Sir Max Mallowan), and described in her Autobiography, is alluded to in Chapter 13. "Imagine, in a little hotel in Syria was an Englishman whose wife had been taken ill. He himself had to be somewhere in Iraq by a certain date. Eh bien, would you believe it, he left his wife and went on so as to be on duty in time? And both he and his wife thought that quite natural; they thought him noble, unselfish. But the doctor, who was not English, thought him a barbarian."

Adaptations

Television

British live-action adaptation

The novel was adapted as an episode for the series Agatha Christie's Poirot, in 1992. It starred David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, and Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector James Japp. Although the adaptation remained largely faithful to most of the novel's plot, it featured a number of changes:

  • The characters of Dr Bryant, James Ryder and Armand Dupont are omitted from the adaptation; Jean Dupont is the only archaeologist on the flight.
  • The aircraft is a Douglas DC-3, instead of a Handley Page H.P.42 as described in the novel. The DC3 is slightly anachronistic, as the type first flew in December 1935: the episode is set in June 1935 (Poirot watches Fred Perry winning the French Championships). All H.P.42s had been destroyed by 1940, and the still-flying DC3 used in the production, registration G-AMRA, was built in 1944.
  • Poirot is assisted by Japp throughout the investigation; he comes with him to investigate the case in France. Inspector Fournier is given a lesser role as a result.
  • The details of some of the characters are modified:
  • Jane Grey is an air stewardess on the flight. Although she works with Poirot on the case, she is not matched up with anyone at its conclusion.
  • Daniel Clancy suffers from a mental malady, in which he believe his fictional detective has a control on his life. He attends the denouement mainly to learn who the killer is, rather than witnessing a real-life detective at work.
  • Venetia Kerr and Poirot do not change seats on the flight.
  • Anne Morisot (a.k.a. Madeleine) has married Gale in Paris, not Rotterdam.
  • Armand Dupont is dead for two years.
  • Poirot meets some of the suspects at a tennis match he attends in Paris, by invitation of Jane.

Japanese animated adaptation

It was later adapted as the final 4 episodes of the Japanese animated television series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, airing in 2005.

Radio

The novel was adapted for radio by BBC Radio 4 in 2003, featuring John Moffatt as Poirot, Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector Japp (as in the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation), Geoffrey Whitehead as Monsieur Fournier, and Teresa Gallagher as Jane Grey.

  • The novel is referenced in the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (2008), which features the Doctor and Donna meeting Agatha Christie in the year 1926, and investigating a series of murders alongside her that were inspired by her novels to that date, committed by a giant, alien wasp. The Doctor remarks towards the end of the episode that, although Christie's memories of the events were erased after the wasp's death, she recalled them in such a way that they later inspired her to write Death in the Clouds, with the inclusion of a wasp in its plot. The book cover shown in the episode is that of the 1974 Fontana Books edition.

Publication history

right|thumb|Dustjacket illustration of the UK first edition

  • , 304 pp.
  • , 256 pp.
  • , 259 pp.
  • , 188 pp.
  • , 189 pp.
  • , 188 pp.
  • , 219 pp.
  • , 256 pp.
  • , along with and , 601 pp.
  • , 256 pp
  • (facsimile of 1935 UK first edition).

The book was first serialised in the US in The Saturday Evening Post in six instalments from 9 February (Volume 207, Number 32) to 16 March 1935 (Volume 207, Number 37) under the title Death in the Air with illustrations by Frederick Mizen.

In the UK, the novel was serialised as an abridged version in the weekly Women's Pictorial magazine in six instalments from 16 February (Volume 29, Number 736) to 23 March 1935 (Volume 29, Number 741) under the title Mystery in the Air. There were no chapter divisions and all of the instalments carried illustrations by Clive Uptton.

References

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