Жарқыраған Цианид: Агата Кристинің романы

Novel by Agatha Christie

Sparkling Cyanide is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1945 under the title of Remembered Death and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in the December of the same year under Christie's original title. The US edition retailed at $2.00 Boyfriend of Iris, who works to solve the many attempts to kill her. Stephen Farraday: Rising member of parliament who had had a brief but passionate affair with Rosemary. Alexandra "Sandra" Farraday: Stephen's wife, formerly the least favored daughter of a prestigious noble family. Lucilla Drake: Aunt to Rosemary and Iris, who inherits if Iris dies childless and unmarried. Victor Drake: Son of Lucilla Drake, a man with desire to get money without work. Ruth Lessing: Young secretary to George. Her name is a pun on the word "ruthless". Chloe West: Actress hired by George who bears a passing resemblance to Rosemary.

The plot of this novel is an expansion of a Hercule Poirot short story entitled "Yellow Iris," which had previously been published in issue 559 of the Strand Magazine in July 1937 and in book form in The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories in the US in 1939. It was published in book form in the UK in Problem at Pollensa Bay in 1991. The full length novel has Colonel Race as the central investigative character in place of Poirot, who had that role in the short story. The novel uses the basics of the short story, including the method of the poisoning, but changes the identity of the culprit(s) – not for the first time, when Christie rewrote her own work.

The book was not reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement. Maurice Richardson, in the 13 January 1946 issue of The Observer wrote, "Agatha Christie readers are divided into two groups: first, fans like me who will put up with any amount of bamboozling for the sake of the pricking suspense, the close finish, six abreast, of the suspect race, and the crashing chord of the trick solution; second, knockers who complain it isn't cricket and anyway there's nothing to it. Fans, I guarantee will be quite happy with Sparkling Cyanide, a high income group double murder, first of wayward smarty Rosemary, second of dull husband George at his lunatic reconstruction of the crime party. It is too forced to rank with her best Number One form, but the suspect race is up to scratch and readability is high. Making allowances for six years of spam and cataclysm, quite a credible performance." An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of 24 February 1945 said, "Suspense is well maintained and suspicion well divided. While this mystery lacks Hercule Poirot, it should nevertheless please all Agatha Christie fans, especially those who like the murders in the fast, sophisticated set." Robert Barnard: "Murder in the past, previously accepted as suicide. Upper class tart gets her come uppance in smart London restaurant, and husband later suffers the same fate. Compulsively told, the strategies of deception smart as a new pin, and generally well up to 'forties standard. But the solution takes more swallowing than cyanided champagne."

In 1983, CBS writers Robert Malcolm Young, Sue Grafton and Steven Humphrey adapted the book into a television film, directed by Robert Michael Lewis, set in modern day California and starring Anthony Andrews as the central character, Tony Browne, with Deborah Raffin as Iris Murdoch, Pamela Bellwood as Ruth Lessing, Josef Sommer as George Barton, David Huffman and June Chadwick as Stephen and Sandra Farraday, Nancy Marchand as Lucilla Drake, and Christine Belford as Rosemary Barton. This adaptation did not feature Colonel Race. In 1993, the short story that served as the basis for this novel, The Yellow Iris, was adapted for television by Anthony Horowitz and directed by Peter Barber Fleming in an episode of the ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet. In late 2003, it was loosely adapted by Laura Lamson for ITV1, again in a modern setting, and involving a football manager's wife's murder. In this adaptation Colonel Race was renamed Colonel Geoffrey Reece, and given a partner, his wife, Dr. Catherine Kendall. The byplay between Reece (played by Oliver Ford Davies) and Kendall (played by Pauline Collins) was somewhat similar to Christie's characters Tommy and Tuppence. In 2013, it was adapted as an episode of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie.

In 2012, a three part adaptation by Joy Wilkinson was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 directed by Mary Peate, with Naomi Frederick as Iris, Amanda Drew as Ruth, Colin Tierney as Anthony, James Lailey as Stephen, Sean Baker as Colonel Race and Jasmine Hyde as Rosemary.