A Pocket Full of Rye
Agatha Christie
From the Miss Marple Omnibus, HarperCollins Publishers. First published 1953.
A crooked businessman is administered poison along with his breakfast in his country home, and dies in his London office a few hours later. All his family members are suspects. The case is investigated by an Inspector Neele. There are two more deaths - another family member, and one of the maids. The maid's death establishes a tenuous link to Miss Marple who invites herself to the household, makes her own investigation, with some exchange of information with Neele, and solves the case. The narrative mainly follows Neele, but his doings and findings are apparently meant to round out the story, and make a few misdirections. I guessed the murderer about a third of the way into the book, and the motive sometime later. Of course, these books are not mathematical puzzles, so you cannot guess everything. Still, as I remarked elsewhere in this blog, half the fun of reading AC comes from taking a bet with oneself regarding the criminal, and then carefully following the storytelling to try and sniff out the red herrings. Not a bad book, but not one of her best.
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