Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Death in the Air by Agatha Christie

book cover
Death in the Air
by Agatha Christien


ISBN: 0-553-35047-1
Hardcover: 218 pages
Publisher: Bantam Book
Released: 1935, 1962

Source: Borrowed from my local library.

Book Description from Goodreads:
High-flying mystery and suspense via Christie and Poirot! Aboard a plane, a woman dies in her seat, apparently the victim of a wasp sting. Then, a venom-tipped dart from a South American blowgun is found in the aisle. Everyone is suspect, including Hercule Poirot, who was sitting a mere fifteen feet from the victim. Poirot finds closer ties between some of the passengers on the plane than they would admit, but who could have wanted the woman dead?


My Review:
Death in the Air--also titled "Death in the Clouds"--is a historical mystery set in 1934 in England and France. (Of course, it was a contemporary mystery at the time it was written.)

The mystery was intriguing because it could have gone several ways as to whodunit. I guessed several elements of the "big reveal" about whodunit, and there were enough clues that you could guess whodunit (though I caught them partly because I've read so many Christie mysteries). The characters were interesting as was the unique setting for the murder, but mainly it was the puzzle of whodunit that kept me interested.

There was no sex. There were some explicit bad words and swearing. Overall, I'd recommend this intriguing mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

5 comments:

Jennifer @ Conversion Diary said...

Just wanted to leave a quick comment to thank you for the thoughtful reviews you post on Amazon! I've never read much fiction and am trying to get into it, and have had a hard time finding books that aren't filled with trashy content. Reading through your review history has helped me find some great reads. Thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

Thought I had read every Agatha until finding this one on your blog. Thanks to your reviews, I've found a lot of clean books and have shared them with others on my website, comfycozybooks.com This was a locked-room type of mystery and I had a sneaking suspicion about whodunit but didn't figure it out until the very end. Good book, highly recommend!

Debbie said...

Jennifer and Donna,

I'm so glad my reviews have been helpful. :)


Donna,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the book.

Anonymous said...

I just read Mrs. McGinty's Dead and thought your readers might find this bit of trivia LOL funny! In the book, there is an author, Ariadne Oliver, who supposedly is a caricature of Christie. Mrs. Oliver makes a comment that "...in one book I made a blowpipe a foot long and it's really six feet! Someone wrote from a museum to tell me so." Now I wonder if that really happened to Christie after she published Death in the Air?

Debbie said...

Donna, thanks for sharing that trivia! A 1 foot long blowpipe would have poor accuracy, and real blowpipes are very long (6 feet sounds right). I wouldn't be surprised if someone did write to correct her on that. And I'm sure authors are relieved that I don't comment on every error I notice. lol