Books: Death in the Clouds By Agatha Christie (1935)

“From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.” 

When I read a lot of Agatha Christie tales in the latter half of the 70’s, the editions I read were the ones released by Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Books. At the time, I don’t think I caught onto some of the subtleties of her social commentaries going on throughout the books. I mean, there is a scene at the Inquest, were all the potential killers are giving their views, with reporters listening on. She makes it very obvious that reporters see things in sensational views. Not only do they make headlines in their heads about the murder, how sensational it is, and how it was done, but when it came to describing the women’s POV, especially the ones from high society, the reporters are more concerned with communicating their fashion than their take on what happened on the plane. Christie was a feminist, so I think this is a jab at the tabloids of the time, where any women of high society being caught up in a murder investigation has to take a backseat to looks and their stations in England during this period (though nearly 90 years later, this continues in the press). As a matter of fact, even a few male characters voice the same thing that being caught up in this unsavory murder is detrimental to their public appearance, both in their work and private lives.

I also found it interesting the changes Berkley Books made to some of the prose. In the UK version of the paperback, which was released by Fontana Books (a division of Harper Collins) in 1935, they kept the word “bitch” in when describing a person, but Berkley changed it to “hag” in the American edition. Also the word “toilet” was changed to “bath room.” There are also some “meta” moments in the book, along with other doses of social commentary, like when Inspector Japp reflects on mystery writers who spend their time researching death: “I don’t think it’s healthy for a man to be always brooding over crime and detective stories, reading up all sorts of cases. It puts ideas into his head.” Christie was well known for doing a lot of research for her novels, but she was also a woman who was making a fortune writing these whodunits.

Death in the Clouds (AKA as Death in the Air) is set in 1935, and it’s interesting to note the use of psychology of the crime, which was in its infancy then. It’s sort of made fun here by the police, but Poirot seems to subscribe to it. That’s why so much is made of the boldness of the crime, how it was committed in such an enclosed environment and how it must’ve been witnessed by many people who didn’t realize it or unaware they were seeing a murder. When he talks to the maid of the dead woman (a women of “lower class”, I guess?), she seems unwilling to reveal much to a police, who know how to manipulate those servants (seemly something that remains consistent today, some 90 years ago later), Poirot, as a private detective, tells her (in another meta moment, as this is a plot device of all murder mysteries seemly have) that “In every a case of a criminal nature ones comes across the same phenomena when questioning witnesses. Everybody keeps something back. Sometimes –often indeed- it is something quite harmless, something, perhaps quite unconnected with the crime; but –I say it again- there is always something.”

I did look up the Irish Sweep –the character of Jane Grey’s Paris trip was funded by this. I had never heard of it, so was curious if it was a real thing. It was: The Irish Free State Hospitals’ Sweepstakes, was a lottery established in 1930 to fund Irish hospitals. Lotteries of any kind were illegal in the UK at the time and by 1934, an act prohibition on the import and export of lottery related materials was enacted. But it didn’t stop some English from taking advantage of it.

There are a few racist moments within the book, as well, including the word “Ikey”, which was slang to refer to Jane’s Jewish boss. Also, Norman and Jane also discover their mutual dislike for “negroes”. The French also come under fire, with Jane thinking to herself “he’s French, though. You’ve got to look out with the French, they always say so.” Even Poirot gets insulted: “Foreigners, you can’t trust foreigners, even if they are hand in glove with the police”. It all seems unseemly, tacky and okay. One can see why in later editions of these books and others, some of this stuff is toned down, I guess. It’s like what happened to the original Nancy Drew titles published in the 1930’s. By the 1950’s a lot racist passages those books contained were completely re-written or certain some passages were dropped from those books and then re-issued to American’s who’s views had changed since WWII.

It’s a fun read, maybe not as brilliant as say Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express, but its still a great whodunit.