Hello crime readers and food lovers. Welcome to Dining with The Dame! Today’s book, A Pocket Full of Rye, is my favourite Miss Marple to date. I absolutely loved this one.  This is not so much a Dark Marple but a Marple out for vengeance!  To paraphrase the 1976 film Network, “She’s as mad as hell, and she’s not going to take it anymore”!  And I am here for every second of it! 

Inspector Neele gave a sudden, rather unexpected smile. He was thinking to himself that Miss Marple was very unlike the popular notion of an avenging fury.  And yet, he thought that was perhaps exactly what she was.

A Pocket Full Of  Rye – Agatha Christie

Something I did not love about this book, at least in writing this post, was the weird use of ‘Pocket Full’ versus ‘Pocketful’. However, if Agatha Christie preferred it that way, who am I to judge?

Today’s menu will be a Bird Pie from Diana Henry’s excellent book A Bird In The Hand.  Please note that I am not aiming for any verisimilitude with the text by baking four and twenty blackbirds in my pie.  This bird pie contains a far more prosaic (and I’m sure more delicious) chicken!  

Bird Pie 1

A Pocket Full of Rye – The Plot

Setting The Scene

The king was in the counting-house, counting out his money…

Rex Fortescue, a wealthy businessman, dies after drinking a cup of tea in his office. However, it soon becomes apparent that the circumstances are far more complex than they initially seemed. Firstly, the actual poison was taxine, a deadly poison derived from Yew trees. Since taxine is a slow-acting poison, it could not have been contained in the tea. Instead, it was far more likely to have been something Rex consumed earlier, such as breakfast. Furthermore, he was found with some grains of rye in his pocket, an intriguing detail that adds another layer to the mystery.

Suspicion soon turns to Rex’s second and much younger wife, Adele. Indeed, Adele was almost certainly having an affair with her “golfing” partner, Vivien Dubois, providing her with a strong motive for murder.

The queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey…

However, not long after Rex’s death, Adele is also killed via cyanide in her afternoon tea.

Bird Pie 2

The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes, when down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose

Gladys Mitchell, the Fortescue’s maid, is later discovered strangled by the washing line with a clothes peg on her nose.

Enter Miss Marple

Gladys, the maid, had previously worked for Miss Marple.  In fact, Miss Marple trained Gladys in housekeeping straight from the orphanage.  Miss Marple remembers Gladys as a somewhat gullible, hopelessly romantic young girl.  And she is fuming about the way that Gladys died!

“It was the clothes peg  that really worried me,” said Miss Marple in her gentle voice…That’s what made me so angry, if you can understand, my dear.  It was such a cruel, contemptuous gesture.  It gave me a kind of picture of the murderer. To do a thing like that!  It’s very wicked you know to affront human dignity”

A Pocket Full of Rye – Agatha Christie

We have:

  • The return of Rex’s wayward son, Lancelot
  • Strange muddy footprints in the house
  • A housekeeper with something to hide
  • A mysterious person in the garden
  • An entire family vowing revenge on Rex Fortescue for some financial double-dealings around a failed goldmine in Africa
  • Blackbirds left on a windowsill and baked into a pie

Thankfully, Miss Marple can pull together these disparate threads and gain justice for poor Gladys.  And, I guess, Rex and Adele.  Even though they, and the members of their family, are all awful people.  

A Pocket Full of Rye – The Covers

Pocket Full of Rye Collage

There are some amazing covers here. Lots of blackbirds and cups of tea as to be expected. There are also two great pulp covers featuring Rex and Adele lying dead.  My favourite, though, is the German cover with the hand on the lawn, presumably referencing Gladys, lying dead by the washing line.  Maybe, like Miss Marple, I am happy she is being recognised, if only in death. 

Below this is a rather unflattering drawing of Miss Marple on the cover of a Czech version.  In contrast, two to the right of this one, there looks to be a very snazzily dressed Miss Marple wearing a beautiful lilac suit paired with a gorgeous green scarf, bag and umbrella.  It’s such a pleasant change to see a glam Miss Marple.  Even though I’m sure far more eyes were focussed on the central figure of a very buxom Adele virtually bursting out of what is most definitely not a golfing outfit! 

Miss Marple

The Recipe: Bird Pie

I very much enjoyed this.  The capers were a really nice addition that added a little spark to this chicken pie! 

AA Bird Pie

Bird Pie 3

Links to the Christieverse

  • None that I could find. Please let me know if you find any!

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in They Do It With Mirrors

Our read for March will be Destination Unknown. 

Have a great week!

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