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A Pocket Full of Rye: B2+
A Pocket Full of Rye: B2+
A Pocket Full of Rye: B2+
Audiobook3 hours

A Pocket Full of Rye: B2+

Written by Agatha Christie

Narrated by Jane Collingwood

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter with the language targeted at learners of English.

Rex Fortescue, the boss of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his office, when he suffered a painful and sudden death. When the police checked the victim’s pockets, they found grain.

Miss Marple knows one of the servants in Rex Fortescue’s house and comes to help solve the mystery. She soon starts to suspect that she is dealing with a case of crime by rhyme …

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 5, 2017
ISBN9780008267360
A Pocket Full of Rye: B2+
Author

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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Reviews for A Pocket Full of Rye

Rating: 3.942857142857143 out of 5 stars
4/5

35 ratings28 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm not a huge Miss Marple fan, but I liked this episode in her series. That's probably because she wasn't involved that much in the story. She tended to slow the plot down when she did appear, but since it wasn't that often, the story kept my interest. I loved the inclusion of the nursery rhyme into the murder. But my favorite part of the story was how it ended. Nicely done, Ms. Christie.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very good, especially so because it's one of only a handful of Christie books that shows a servant with a life besides serving. More often than not, Christie's servants barely have a name (when it can be remembered), much less a personality fleshed out beyond the stereotypical uneducated emotional girl who either stole something or saw something. I found the end particularly moving in that regard - here and I believe for the first time, the police enters a servant's room to search her belongings and Miss Marple has a strong connection to this character which leads to a very bittersweet finale. The murderer made a lot of sense personality-wise and I thought Mary, the housekeeper, was quite an incredible character. Interesting plot too, I've always thought Christie's use of common proverbs and nursery rhymes to be really clever.
    Definitely one of her better ones.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    City businessman Rex Fortescue has a nice cup of tea at the office, and dies of poisoning. The peculiar points to this are the poison used, and the fact that the dead man's pocket had grains of rye amongst the contents. Inspector Neele sets about investigating the dead man's household, which provides a good selection of potential suspects. Alas, one of the best suspects is next on the murderer's list, and then there's a third death.Miss Marple doesn't appear until nearly half way through the book. Her interest in the matter is the housemaid who was murdered, who happened to be one of the many girls Miss Marple has trained as a maid over the years. When she arrives to provide information on the girl's background, Inspector Neele recognises her as someone who has a great deal of common sense and the ability to get people who wouldn't dream of talking to a policeman to reveal secrets to her. The resulting interplay between Neele's investigation and Miss Marple's investigation is most entertaining. Neele's no fool, even if he's happy to play one in public, but it's Miss Marple's experience of human behaviour that allows them to unravel who, how and why.Well plotted, with one or two twists on the resolution of the red herrings which make them interesting little tales in their own right, rather than just a distraction from the true identity of the murderer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A good Miss Marple mystery. Though Miss Marple is not mentioned in it as often as I'd expect. At the center of a mystery is a very unpleasant family. They are not very likeable characters. The plot twists got me again, and the murderer turned out to be someone I did not want it to be! The very last page is priceless. Reading the last page made the whole book worthwhile. Don't know how Christie does that...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is standard Christie fare, which of course means great fun and plenty of false leads as to the identity of the killer. We find an interesting puzzle built around a poisoning.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie
    3 stars
    This 1953 work by Agatha Christie is a Jane Marple murder mystery and based on a nursery rhyme. It’s a entertaining who done it and a quick read as Christie’s novels usually are. This story is about the Fortescue family and involves Inspector Neele investigating the poisoning death of Rex Fortescue soon followed by the death of his young, second wife and a household staff. This family is best described as quoted (from Alice in Wonderland) by Inspector Neele as “they’re all very unpleasant people”. Ms Jane Marple comes into the book a little over half way through. She really doesn’t feel like she fits in the investigation but together, Neele and Marple flesh out the murderer. This is the first Jane Marple mystery for me.

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An unpleasant man is murdered, followed by his unpleasant wife, leaving behind a dysfunctional family full of suspects. Miss Marple eventually appears and solves the case. Competently done but not one of my favorites.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a mystery based on the nursery rhyme 'Sing a song of Sixpence.' I'm just not a fan of Christie and this particular book is dryer than most.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When Rex Fortescue is discovered to have been murdered by poison in his office, Inspector Neele of Scotland Yard is quite sure he knows exactly who's behind it. But when two more members of Fortescue's household are also found dead, Neele is suddenly left quite perplexed. When Miss Marple arrives to aid the investigation due to her knowledge of one of the victims, the astute insights of the innocuous-looking old woman are likely to set everything on its ear.Yet another thoroughly satisfying Miss Marple outing. As ever, she had me fully stumped on the whodunnit and her ability to create fantastic characters who feel utterly real from the moment they appear on the page is astounding. Christie continues her run of being unable to disappoint.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Murders are tied to a nursery rhyme in A Pocket Full Rye, a Miss Marple Mystery. I found the story interesting, but the ending, surprising as it was, lacked meaning. Definitely not a favorite from the Queen of Crime.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed Murder with Mirrors, so I jumped right into the next Miss Marple mystery as soon as I finished it. And, I was not disappointed. Rex Fortescue dies while in the office at his firm. He was poisoned by taxine, a derivative of the Yew Tree. Weirdly, some grains of rye are found in his coat pocket. Rex’s 30 year younger wife Adele is the prime suspect. However, the day prodigal son Lancelot returns home, Adele dies from Cyanide poisoning and the young maid is found strangled. Inspector Neele is hard at work on the case when Miss Marple arrives – she knew the maid, Gladys, and could perhaps throw some light on the matter. It is she who zeroes in on an old children's rhyme, “Sing a Song of Sixpence” wherein the pocketful of rye and other clues come in. There are several suspects including Rex’s sons, their wives, the house manager Miss Dove, and even the maid’s boyfriend. Money was a motive for killing Rex, but why the wife and maid?The mystery here was solid, but what I really enjoyed most was the scandalous, family drama. The conclusion was also interesting in that the culprit is identified by Miss Marple & the Inspector but is not classically revealed. They know who it is but cannot prove it – leading to an epilogue that wraps it all up. My only minor complaint, and it is one I have found in many of the Miss Marple mysteries, is that her appearance is highly contrived. And, as with many mysteries from this era, the police investigator welcomes her (a complete stranger) and shares details of the case with her. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief if this were a modern mystery, but it’s manageable for the time it is set and was written in. And Miss Marple is delightful, so I can live with a little contrivance.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rex Fortescue is poisoned one day in his office but the type of poison used and when it must have been administered mean that suspicion falls on those at home rather than anyone in the office. Christie is very good at creating an atmosphere of deep unease and 'something wrong but can't quite put my finder on what' in what should otherwise be a well-off upper middle-class household. Miss Marple arrives to assist with this one fairly late in the day and is described as 'tall' in defiance of every TV adaptation (never noticed this before).The link to the nursery rhyme feels less contrived than in some of Christie's other books (possibly because it's deliberately done by the murderer to cast suspicion elsewhere)."I don't believe this was ever a happy house. I don't believe anybody was ever happy in it, in spite of all the money they spent and the things they had."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Although this is a Miss Marple story she does feel as if she has been crowbared into the plot, but its still a fun read and we get to see Miss Marple as an angry avenger of the dead, a role she takes on to great effect in A Caribbean Mystery and Nemisis
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Agatha Christie for beginners. Point One: don't trust anyone recently returned from the colonies. Point Two: anyone who buys a new pair a nylons is going to die.To criticise Agatha Christie of being formulaic is like criticising Anne Rice of being obsessed with sexually ambiguous vampires. The truth of the charge can't be denied but the accuser is missing the point. The genius of Agatha Christie lies in threading a believable motive through a morass of misdirection. Her murders work, not because they are particulary realistic or 'gritty' (the adjective of the hour for contemporary crime writing) but because they place incredible events in a mudane and credible setting. The fact that she got away with using the same narrative structure over the course of hundreds of novels, without her twists becoming transparent or her books lacking that vital page-turning ability is testament to her very great skill. Perfect sofa reading for those who enjoy sudoku, mulling over the poularity of Miley Cyrus or any other of life's great enigmas.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rex Fortescue dies after a seizure at his office. The doctor determines poison to be the cause of death. Because of onset time, suspicion falls on those in the man's household. Inspector Neele arrives to question suspects. Two more deaths occur. Miss Marple, who read about the deaths, arrives to assist the inspector by doing what she does best--poking her nose in the household affairs. A nice complex mystery with a literary allusion to the nursery rhyme in the title. I listened to the audio version read by Richard Grant who did a great job.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a beautifully done murder mystery with an amazing puzzle, excellent characters and a perfect solution.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye...Businessman Rex Fortescue is found dead in his office after drinking his morning tea. It doesn’t take long to determine that he’s been poisoned. But the really puzzling thing is the handful of rye that was found in his pocket. What purpose did it serve? Inspector Neele is on the case, and of course he’s interested in finding out who would gain by Fortescue’s death. His much younger widow, who doesn’t play golf yet has lots of golf dates with a handsome young man? His son and junior business partner? His daughter, who is in love with a young man with socialist views? Or his estranged son who has just reappeared on the scene from exile in Africa? Or maybe the murderer will be found among the household help, including the secretive housekeeper, Miss Dove, the butler, Crump, the cook, Mrs. Crump, or the young maid, Gladys? More deaths make it even more urgent to find the killer. Inspector Neele finally gets the breakthrough he needs once Miss Marple arrives on the scene.This is one of my favorite Miss Marple novels. I had read it years ago and still remembered the solution. What I didn’t remember is that Miss Marple doesn’t show up until about halfway through the book. As usual, she makes the most of her limited page time. Her insights into human nature from decades of village life help her spot individuals with character flaws that just might lead to murder under the right circumstances.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A very hot day, very sleepy, some Agatha Christie the perfect reading material. They are all very unpleasant people but the mystery and use of "Sing a Song of Sixpence" is fun!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Agatha Christie used nursery rhymes as titles of her novels several times (Ten Little Indians, Five Little Pigs, Hickory Dickory Dock, One Two Buckle My Shoe, Sing a Song of Sixpence, Three Blind Mice, There Was a Crooked Man - have I missed any?) and they serve to add a sense of direction to the novel as well as provide a clue to the identity of the suspect.Sing a song of sixpence,A pocket full of rye;Four and twenty blackbirdsBaked in a pie.When the pie was opened,They all began to sing.Now, wasn't that a dainty dishTo set before the King?The King was in his countinghouse,Counting out his money;The Queen was in the parlorEating bread and honey.The maid was in the garden,Hanging out the clothes.Along there came a big black birdAnd snipped off her nose!A POCKET FULL OF RYE is set in post World War II years, amid a really quite nasty family. It is filled with tales of frustration, revenge and greed.Miss Marple becomes part of the investigating team when she reads that the maid at Yewtree Lodge is one of three people murdered. The maid is an orphan whom Jane Marple helped train for private service. Miss Marple is particularly upset when the maid is found with a clothes peg on her nose. She makes a train journey from St. Mary Mead via London and presents herself at Yewtree Lodge: Crump [the butler] saw a tall, elderly lady wearing an old-fashioned tweed coat and skirt, a couple of scarves and a small felt hat with a bird’s wing. The old lady carried a capacious handbag and an aged but good-quality suitcase reposed by her feet. Crump recognized a lady when he saw one...The detective in charge of the case wisely decides to make use of Miss Marple's talents. Inspector Neele looked with some interest at the mild, earnest face of the old lady who confronted him now at Yewtree Lodge. He had been in two minds at first how to treat her, but he quickly made up his mind. Miss Marple would be useful to him. She was upright, of unimpeachable rectitude and she had, like most old ladies, time on her hands and an old maid’s nose for scenting bits of gossip. She’d get things out of servants, and out of the women of the Fortescue family perhaps, that he and his policemen would never get. Talk, conjecture, reminiscences, repetitions of things said and done, out of it all she would pick the salient facts. So Inspector Neele was gracious.I don't think the murderer's identity came as a surprise. I was surprised that he used three separate murder weapons, albeit two of them were poisons. The maid's murder felt more callous and was certainly more violent.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When her former maid is caught up in a triple murder case, Miss Marple arrives on the scene to lend a hand.Agatha Christie is always a bit hit-or-miss, but I'd classify this one as a hit. She always does her best work when she tackles smaller, family-oriented mysteries like this one. The story itself isn't anything special in a literary sense, but I had a durned good time with it! The murders are cleverly plotted, the characters are fairly well-drawn, the family dynamics are revealed in an interesting manner, and the sleuth is perfectly chosen. Miss Marple's trademark blend of keen observation, scatterbrained social referencing and spot-on intuitive leaps works very well within this tight little mystery. Her insights help illuminate the facts in a way that makes sense but still provides the reader with some surprises.Definitely recommended to fans of old school mysteries. This book would be an excellent way to spend an afternoon or evening.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A Pocketful Of Rye (1953) (Miss Marple #7) by Agatha Christie. Here is a delightful but deadly take on the child’s nursery rhyme. It goes, “Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.” But Dame Agatha has again taken something familiar from childhood and twisted it to her own dark ends. Rex Fortescue is the king of his family and his business, but he ends up at work, dead, poisoned that morning at breakfast. His second wife, twenty years younger than he, his two sons, one returned from Africa just after the murder, and their wives, and Rex’s daughter Jennifer, are the main cast of likely suspects, along with several family servants. In charge of the case is Inspector Neele and while he starts out on possibly the right path, his footing is taken away when his chief suspect becomes body #2. To his rescue comes kindly, frail Miss Jane Marple. She has read about a portion of the murders that has greatly upset her and so she is determined to become part of the investigation. While the police are skeptical at first, Miss Marple uses her charms to inveigle her way into the family, uncovers several secrets and delivers the surprising solution to the puzzle. This last bit is mostly speculation as there is a great lack of evidence, but later she receives confirmation of her ideas.This is another charming story with a confusing set of circumstances which lead to a very good read. Not the best, but four stars plus none the less.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A most interesting fact about my interpretation of detective books is that I'm not able to appreciate and rate with the consensus how good the outcome of an investigation is. Many people swear by the cleverness of the murderer's alibi. Not me; it's not a deliberate choice, I simply can't appreciate the subtlety of a water tight crime. The way I see it, is that if the journey is good, and if there are startling revelations, and if I can put a face to a well depicted character, then the said book would have fulfilled its purpose of providing me with a roller coaster ride. A Pocket Full of Rye does more than tick all the boxes.I did notice two jarring notes in this very entertaining book. First time ever, has Miss Marple been described as tall. I never imagined her as beyond 5 feet 10 inches, tops. Almost all female characters are regularly said to be tall. One impossible explanation that occurred to me was that the author somehow had the word ringing in her brain, and wrote the entire book in one sitting. The more plausible reason was that it was a reference to something from her life. She deliberately planted the word tall throughout her book. Anyway, I'll never imagine Miss Marple as taller than average, because she was old and she must have shrunk somewhat. Elementary, my dear.The second thing concerned the last sentence in the book: "...successfully reconstructed an extinct animal from a fragment of jawbone and a couple of teeth." That was a haphazard phrase thrown in making the last line look very abrupt. Moving on, I'd like to say that this Inspector Neele person is a super Lestrade. He is allowed one generous, clever deduction, and that was the blackmail of Jennifer Fortescue by Mary Dove. I also thought it was too much that the author made of Mary an accomplice to thieves. Too much going on, I would have liked Mary Dove to remain impassive to the end. Perhaps the author, having pitted Neele's wits against Mary's impassiveness, just had to make the Inspector put one over Mary Dove.Despite these middling things, I had great fun reading this mystery. This book is greater than the sum of its parts. The letter and photo scene near the end provided a vital clue but was also poignant. It was a little piteous to see tears in Miss Marple eyes.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Same old good Agatha Cristie book. Easy read and impossible to be put down. I really missed reading the Agatha Cristie books :D
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Polizeiinspektor Neel ermittlet in Sachen Giftmord in wohlhabenden Kreisen. Seine Untersuchungen machen gewisse Fortschritte, aber entscheidende Hinweise liefert dann erst Miss Marple, die spät im Roman erscheint und auch nur gelgentlich in Erscheinung tritt. Es ist ein solider klassischer Wer-ist-der-Mörder-Kriminalroman, der dem Leser/der Leserin einige Möglichkeiten zur Spekulation bietet. Gelungen ist die Beschreibung der Verhältnisse im Hause des reichen Unternehmers. Die Beziehungen der Damen und Herren einerseits untereinander und zu den Angestellten sind der eigentliche Kern der Geschichte. All dies ist gut konstruiert und beschrieben und wird durch einige witzig-bissige Kommentare begleitet. Der Kriminalfall selbst ist eher unspektakulär. Unglücklich ist die Übersetzung des Titels ausgefallen (im Original: A Pocket full of Rye).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    First I liked the fact that Miss Marple was not that involved in this book, mostly the CID Neel and it was his going around talking to everyone that made the story better for me.

    A rich eccentric businessman is dead by poison at this office (found with a handful of Rye in his pocket), but the poison used was one with a delayed reaction.... so someone tampered w/ his breakfast. He wasn't mean nor tightfisted toward his family, just suddenly making bad business decisions and was known to cheat in his dealings to get what he wanted.

    Two other murders take place which seem to be mimicking the nursery rhyme..... The wife (eating bread & honey) and Miss Marple's former housemaid, Gladys (in the garden, but not hanging out the clothes).

    The year prior, blackbirds baked into a pie, and four on the old man's desk...... The Blackbird mine deal......

    Family & household members seeming to be whom they might not be, with hidden pasts.

    As I said, Miss Marple wasn't in evidence as the main character, so it made the story much more enjoyable for me. Good plot twists!

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love Miss Marple so very much :)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a mystery based on the nursery rhyme 'Sing a song of Sixpence.' I'm just not a fan of Christie and this particular book is dryer than most.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The cruel poisoning of their patriarch shocks an upper-class family, but it’s only the beginning…

    Agatha Christie sure loved a good gallery of grotesques. As in the superior "Hercule Poirot’s Christmas" (of which this novel is highly evocative), "A Pocket Full of Rye" lets a murderer loose amongst the upper class and, in doing so, reveals their inherent greediness and unpleasantness. I’m not personally enamoured by blood and gore, but there was something freeing during the ’50s and ’60s, when Christie was able to become a bit more gruesome with her crimes, and when she set about examining the darker side of human nature. All of the characters in this novel are intriguing, if soulless, and there’s more misdirection than you can shake a stick at.

    As for the title… I was tempted, at first, to say that using a nursery rhyme indicates an average novel that Christie decided to bolster with a slightly contrived structure. However, I realised that no less than three of my all-time favourite Christies incorporate a rhyme, so it can’t be as simple as that. Suffice it to say that while the nursery rhyme is used creepily, it never amounts to all that much.

    Marple ranking: 6th out of 14