Sad Cypress is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1940 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at eight shillings and threepence (8/3)

In The New York Times Book Review of 15 September 1940, Kay Irvin concluded, "The cast of characters is small, the drama is built up with all this author's sure, economical skill. Sad Cypress is not the best of the Christie achievements, but it is better than the average thriller on every count."

In reviewing several crime novels in The Observers issue of 10 March 1940, Maurice Richardson began, "An outstanding crime week. Not only is Agatha Christie shining balefully on her throne, but the courtiers have made an unusually neat artistic arrangement of corpses up and down the steps." Concentrating on Sad Cypress specifically, Richardson concluded, "Characterisation brilliantly intense as ever. In fact, Agatha Christie has done it again, which is all you need to know."

The Scotsmans review in its issue of 11 March 1940 concluded, "Sad Cypress is slighter and rather less ingenious than Mrs Christie's stories usually are, and the concluding explanation is unduly prolonged. But it is only with reference to Mrs Christie's own high level that it seems inferior. By ordinary standards of detective fiction it is a fascinating and skilfully related tale."

E R Punshon in The Guardians issue of 2 April 1940 concluded, "The story is told with all and even more of Mrs Christie's accustomed skill and economy of effect, but it is a pity that the plot turns upon a legal point familiar to all and yet so misconceived that many readers will feel the tale is deprived of plausibility."

Robert Barnard considered this novel to be "A variation on the usual triangle theme and the only time Christie uses the lovely-woman-in-the-dock-accused-of-murder ploy." His commentary on it was strongly positive, calling it "Elegiac, more emotionally involving than is usual in Christie, but the ingenuity and superb clueing put it among the very best of the classic titles. Her knowledge of poison is well to the fore, but the amateur will also benefit from a knowledge of horticulture and a skill in close reading."

References to other works

Peter Lord says that he has been recommended to consult Poirot by Dr John Stillingfleet on the basis of Poirot's brilliant performance in the case related in the short story, "The Dream", which had been printed two years earlier in issue 566 of The Strand (magazine) and later printed in book form in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding in 1960 in the UK and in The Regatta Mystery in the US in 1939. The character of Stillingfleet later reappears in Third Girl (1966).

One of the witnesses flown to the trial from New Zealand is named Amelia Sedley, a name borrowed from the novel Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.

The character of Peter Lord appears to be a reference to the work of Christie's colleague and fellow member of the Detection Club, Dorothy L. Sayers. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey character also drives a Daimler, and in the 1930 novel Strong Poison he falls in love with a woman who is on trial for murder by poisoning.

Adaptations

Radio

The novel was adapted as a five-part serial for BBC Radio 4 in 1992. John Moffatt reprised his role of Poirot. The serial was broadcast weekly from Thursday, 14 May to Thursday, 11 June at 10.00am to 10.30pm. All five episodes were recorded in the week of 16 to 20 March 1992.

Adaptor: Michael Bakewell<br/>

Producer: Enyd Williams

Cast:

  • Eric Allan as Inspector Brill
  • Jonathan Adams as Mr Wargrave
  • Barbara Atkinson as Mrs Welman
  • Margot Boyd as Mrs Bishop
  • John Church as Dr Garcia, and Clerk
  • Susannah Corbett as Mary Gerrard
  • Alan Cullen as the Judge
  • Keith Drinkel as Policeman
  • Emma Fielding as Elinor Carlisle
  • Eamonn Fleming as Ted Bigland
  • Pauline Letts as Nurse Hopkins
  • Peter Penry-Jones as Sir Samuel Atterbury
  • David McAlister as Dr Lord
  • John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot
  • Joanna Myers as Nurse O'Brien, and as the singer of the title song
  • Gordon Reid as Mr Littledale
  • Charles Simpson as Roddy Welman
  • John Webb as Mr Gerrard

Television

;British adaptation

The book was adapted by London Weekend Television as a one-hundred-minute drama and transmitted on ITV in the UK on Friday 26 December 2003 as a special episode in their series Agatha Christie's Poirot. The adaptation was quite faithful to the novel, with the time being the only major change. In the end, Nurse Hopkins attempts to kill Poirot with poisoned tea but he pretends to drink it and pours the tea into a sugar bowl.

Adaptor: David Pirie<br/>Director: David Moore

Cast:

  • David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
  • Elisabeth Dermot Walsh as Elinor Carlisle
  • Rupert Penry-Jones as Roddy Winter
  • Kelly Reilly as Mary Gerrard
  • Paul McGann as Dr Peter Lord
  • Phyllis Logan as Nurse Hopkins
  • Marion O'Dwyer as Nurse O'Brien
  • Diana Quick as Mrs Laura Welman
  • Stuart Laing as Ted Horlick
  • Jack Galloway as Marsden
  • Geoffrey Beevers as Seddon
  • Alistair Findlay as Prosecuting Counsel
  • Linda Spurrier as Mrs. Bishop
  • Timothy Carlton as Judge

Sad Cypress was filmed on location at Dorney Court, Buckinghamshire.

;French adaptation

The novel was adapted as the sixth episode of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. The episode first aired in 2010.

Publication history

  • 1940, Collins Crime Club (London), March, hardcover, 256 pp
  • 1940, Dodd Mead & Co (New York), hardcover, 270 pp
  • 1946, Dell Books, paperback, 224 pp (Dell number 172 mapback)
  • 1959, Fontana Books (imprint of HarperCollins), paperback, 191 pp
  • 1965, Ulverscroft large-print, hardcover, 239 pp
  • 2008, Poirot Facsimile Edition (of 1940 UK first edition), HarperCollins, 1 April 2008, hardback,

The book was first serialised in the US in Collier's Weekly in ten parts from 25 November 1939 (volume 104, number 22)

References

  • Sad Cypress novel at the official Agatha Christie website
  • Sad Cypress television program at the official Agatha Christie website