Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Not a (ahem) sparkling achievement May 28, 2008
Young and beautiful Rosemary Barton died while dining at a fine restaurant. Her death was purportedly caused by Rosemary's spiking of her own champagne with cyanide. A year having passed, Rosemary's grieving husband and younger sister are coming to believe that Rosemary's death was not by her own hand. There are, as one might expect, several good suspects and little good evidence. Rosemary's husband has a plan to flush out the killer, a recreation of the fatal dinner. Will the killer be given away or will death be again on the menu?
Remembered Death (or Sparkling Cyanide) has lots of the elements that make a Christie novel identifiably a Christie novel. There are the idle rich, a suspicious death with few and vague clues, a group of people all with good reason to want the murdered person dead and a subtle detective plodding to a revelatory denouement. This book, however, is clearly not one of Ms. Christie's better efforts. The plot lacks forward momentum, the characters are flat and non-compelling and, perhaps worst, the solution isn't entirely persuasive. Go ahead and read this if you're a Christie completist. If not, you're best off picking another.
 WILL SOMEONE LET THE WOMAN SPEAK? May 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What "improvements" have been made for the St. Martin's Minotaur edition? There are already major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead (REMEMBERED DEATH) 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 Signet, 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.
 "Rosemary, that's for remembrance." January 31, 2008
After the sad suicide of Rosemary Barton, life went on. Her sister, Iris, got used to her absence. Her husband mourned her, but began to pick up his life again. Suicide is difficult to recover from, but it appeared that recovery was in sight for the family. That is, it was until some mysterious notes make a terrible accusation: Rosemary Barton, they claimed, was murdered. Murder, not suicide.
With that suspicion, everything changes.
Sparkling Cyanide is loosely linked to The Man in the Brown Suit through the character of Colonel Race. The plot also has some similarities in terms of the romances between the respective leading ladies and their suspicious men. The Man in the Brown Suit is much earlier and somehow stronger. The rollicking romance of the first book gave way to the claustrophobia and cynicism of the second.
It certainly is not one of the weakest Christie novels, and for the period in which it was released, it stands quite firmly in its shoes. I enjoyed it, as I nearly always do when AC is involved. This was a first time read for me, which was delightful. I had honestly thought that I had read every Christie at one point or another. Nice to discover that I was wrong.
Recommended.
One of my favorites December 30, 2007
Sparkling Cyanide is definitely one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels. I love the setting in which the big bang of the story takes place: in a fancy restaurant with the lights out after a big musical number. Just imagine the setting as being in those 1950s night clubs, like in the I Love Lucy episodes. The murder takes place during a birthday bash, when the lights are turned off to bring in the cake. Cyanide is dropped into the birthday girl's champagne. Once the lights are turned back on, the birthday girl is found dead, slumped over the table.
You'll have to find out how the story revolves around this murder scene. I thought the pacing was really nice. The characters were very interesting, and if memory serves me right, the novel is narrated from the perspectives of several of the members present at the birthday party. In the end, the husband, of the woman murdered, tries to reenact the murder scene by holding a "birthday" reunion at the same restaurant a year later hoping that he'll be able to catch the murderer the second time around.
A treat for Col. Race fans June 27, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Charming socialite Rosemary Barton had committed suicide during her birthday party. Or had she been murdered? She had been a bit depressed after a prolonged bout of the flu but Rosemary had everything to live for, she was young, rich, had both a devoted husband and a lover. And why choose a busy glamorous restaurant during a dinner party held in her honor? Over the next few months doubts began to surface over Rosemary's death, but if she had been murdered then who could have done it but a guest at her party - her husband, adoring younger sister, loyal secretary, friend, her lover or his unsuspecting wife? Then the second murder happened.....
This 1943 mystery (also published as REMEMBERED DEATH) is told from the points of view of starting with Iris, Rosemary's younger sister, shifting to the other members of the ill-fated dinner party. The detective called in here to solve the crime is the mysterious Col. Race.
As always with a Christie novel the clues are all fairly laid out for the reader to follow, the mystery is clever with some interesting twists and turns along the way.
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