"A Pocket Full of Rye" by Agatha Christie

My Mother always had an Agatha Christie mystery somewhere in the house. The classics -- "And Then There Were None," "Death on the Nile," "Murder On the Orient Express" -- were among my early introductions to adult literature.

Occasionally, I stumble across one of Christie's 70 books that has managed to remain unfamiliar to me and I am helpless to resist. An excellent Agatha Christie novel is a thing of tense beauty, exotic locations (or, at the very least, charming scenery) and upper class larceny. By comparison, a mediocre one can seem unoffensively lazy and cliched. Such is my general impression of "A Pocket Full of Rye."

Actor Richard E. Grant's performance of the material is commendable. His narration is wonderfully subdued and his voicing of the characters is purposeful without being distracting. Grant takes just enough liberties to give characters unique voices that help them stand out to the listener and never stoops to overacting. Put succinctly, he was the perfect choice for the material at hand.

Unfortunately, "A Pocket Full of Rye" has little meat hanging on its frail bones. There isn't much mystery to the murder. The cast of characters is woefully small. The murdered man is rich, unlikeable and unquestionably shady in his business dealings. He has left behind, among other things, two unlikeable sons vying for what remains of his fortune, a shifty home assistant, a young and unfaithful wife, and the obligatory wronged former business partner whose widow has vowed vengeance. Character names seem intentionally ridiculous -- the brothers Lancelot & Percival Fortesque, the religious zealot Miss Ramsbottom, the sleazy lover of the young wife Vivien Dubois. You get the idea.

The primary redeeming aspect of the book is the effectively imaginative and persistent Inspector Neele, for some reason sporting the same surname as the real-life mistress of Agatha Christie's first husband. Inspector Neele is a quietly compelling character who does most of the heavy lifting throughout the story. In fact, labeling "A Pocket Full of Rye" a Miss Marple mystery is as much a misleading bit of marketing as if you labeled "The Hobbit" a book about Gollum. Both characters are pivotal to the plots of their respective stories, but each makes what can be called, at best, a cameo appearance.

As a minor distraction, "A Pocket Full of Rye" suffices. Just don't expect too much.

Book Rating: 2 out of 5
Audio Rating: 4 out of 5