Death In The Clouds

A review of Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie – 240305

The twelfth novel in Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot series, originally published in 1935 and going under the title of Death in the Air in America, is a variation of a murder in a railway carriage with an impossible and closed crime thrown in for good measure. Her eccentric and megalomanic sleuth is on board a flight from Paris to Croydon, the reverse journey that formed the basis of Wills Crofts’ 12.30 from Croydon a year earlier, and to the consternation of the passengers, Madame Giselle, is killed. Poirot finds a thorn which has been tipped with poison and the suggestion is that the murderer a blowpipe to strike her. The other inescapable conclusion is that the murderer must have been one of the other eleven passengers or the two stewards.

Amusingly, the blowpipe is found hidden under the seat occupied by Poirot and it takes the prompt intervention of the usually inept Inspector Japp to allow the xenophobic instincts of the jury at the inquest to win the day and point their finger at the suspicious and exotic foreigner. Just like a railway carriage, the passengers on the plane are a motley collection including Countess Horbury, a showgirl made good but who is estranged from her husband, her maid, the Hon. Venetia Kerr, a horsey English aristocrat who is making a play for the Countess’ hubby, Armand and Jean Dupont, two archaeologists presaging the author’s growing interest in the subject, a mystery writer, Daniel Clancy, a businessman under pressure, James Ryder, a dentist, Norman Gale, and Jane Grey, a hairdresser who had a win on the Irish lottery and treated herself to a holiday in France.

Much of the story is seen from the perspective of Jane Grey whom Poirot rather takes under his wing and seeing which way the wind is blowing facilitates a position for her initially as his secretary and then as a member of the Dupont’s next archaeological expedition where her incipient friendship with Jean will presumably flourish. Poirot, anxious to clear his name, sets down to the task of sifting through the passengers and the detailed list of all their luggage which he insisted was drawn up in order to find the culprit and an explanation of why the murder was committed.

Madame Giselle, of course, is a moneylender and the holder of secrets that some of her clients would not like to be made public. Although not above a little blackmail, Giselle does wipe the slate clean by making arrangements with her maid to burn all her papers in the event of anything happening to her for fear that they would fall into the wrong hands. The literal-minded secretary burns the papers but not Giselle’s little black book which contains some clues upon which Poirot’s little grey cells can work.

As is often the case with Christie’s novels, it is almost impossible for the reader to be sure who the culprit is, often their identity pulled out of the sleuth’s chapeau at the last minute and whose guilt and motive is only lightly foreshadowed, if that, until the big reveal. The identity of the culprit here is a bit of a surprise and I did have a little trouble accepting both the motivation behind and the method of the crime. It seemed a rather convoluted way to get one’s hands on a pot of money and required getting rid of two people without rousing too much in the way of suspicion. The method needed a quick change that would have challenged even an accomplished actor and was highly risky. I have never been lucky enough to find the toilet vacant twice in a couple of minutes on a flight. Different times, of course.

Fanciful as much of it is and frustrating for the would-be armchair sleuth, nonetheless it is an entertaining enough read, not a classic but not one of Christie’s worst. With his eye for detail and an overabundance of little grey cells, Poirot is a match for even the most cunning of criminals. Nevertheless, it is always useful to travel with a wasp in a matchbox. I wonder how you get that past airport security.