{"id":12893,"date":"2020-05-23T19:05:14","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T23:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=12893"},"modified":"2025-09-29T22:05:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T02:05:41","slug":"a-pocket-full-of-rye-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/12893","title":{"rendered":"A Pocket Full of Rye"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Pocket Full of Rye<\/a><\/em> (1953) Agatha Christie<\/a> (Miss Marple)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>It was a normal day at work, when they took Rex Fortescue. Then he keeled over, and nothing made sense any more.<\/p>\n

Who could have poisoned Rex–and filled his coat pocket with grain? His much younger (and beautiful) wife, who has been carrying on with another man? The son Percival, who recently had a row with his father? Or someone else?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, sir. But there\u2019s one thing that\u2019s odd. The suit he was wearing\u2014 I checked the contents of the pockets. The usual stuff\u2014 handkerchief, keys, change, wallet\u2014 but there was one thing that\u2019s downright peculiar. The right-hand pocket of his jacket. It had cereal in it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cCereal?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean by cereal? Do you mean a breakfast food? Farmer\u2019s Glory or Wheatifax. Or do you mean corn or barley\u2014\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, sir. Grain it was. Looked like rye to me. Quite a lot of it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had completely forgotten about Mary Dove–it makes me wonder if she was the source material for a mystery I read in the last year, where the main character was a retired butler (although she also asked as housekeeper and many other things as well).<\/p>\n

My dear Inspector Neele, this is the perfect racket. People will pay anything\u2014 anything\u2014 to be spared domestic worries. To find and engage a staff is a thoroughly tedious job. Writing to agencies, putting in advertisements, interviewing people, making arrangements for interviews, and finally keeping the whole thing running smoothly\u2014 it takes a certain capacity which most of these people haven\u2019t got.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In retrospect, the interesting thing about this story is that unlike the last several, love doesn’t win out in the end. All the women seem to have chose poorly in their love lives, and it doesn’t seem likely to be any better for any of them. I had forgotten that, which perhaps made the end of the story depressing, since although we know the murderer is going to get his due, nothing seems likely to work out for anyone else.<\/p>\n

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Pocket Full of Rye (1953) Agatha Christie (Miss Marple) It was a normal day at work, when they took Rex Fortescue. Then he keeled over, and nothing made sense any more. Who could have poisoned Rex–and filled his coat pocket with grain? His much younger (and beautiful) wife, who has been carrying on with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,30,190,33,8,41],"tags":[733,228,229,693],"class_list":["post-12893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-10","category-british","category-cozy","category-historical","category-mystery","category-reread","tag-1950s","tag-agatha-christie","tag-miss-marple","tag-older-protagonist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-3lX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3652,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3652","url_meta":{"origin":12893,"position":0},"title":"A Pocket Full of Rye","author":"Michelle","date":"March 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A Pocket Full of Rye (1953) Agatha Christie Rex Fortescue dies in his office, immediately after drinking his morning tea. Besides the strange poison used to kill me, police are confused by the fact he coat is full of cereal--rye. Miss Marple doesn't make her appearance until almost halfway through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"A Pocket Full of Rye","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/pocket-full-of-rye-182x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24678,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24678","url_meta":{"origin":12893,"position":1},"title":"A Pocket Full of Rye","author":"Michelle","date":"June 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A Pocket Full of Rye (1953) Agatha Christie (Miss Marple, #7) Miss Grosvenor was an incredibly glamorous blonde. She wore an expensively cut little black suit and her shapely legs were encased in the very best and most expensive black-market nylons. Where was there a doctor near here? Nobody knew.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"A Pocket Full of Rye","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Pocketfull-of-Rye.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21259,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21259","url_meta":{"origin":12893,"position":2},"title":"A Pocket Full of Rye","author":"Michelle","date":"May 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"A Pocket Full of Rye (1953) Agatha Christie (Miss Marple) This is one of the stories that has always stuck with me--probably because of the rye mentioned in the title. Rex Fortescue dies in his office, and the police immediately suspect murder. \u201cI gather you don\u2019t think it was natural\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"A Pocket Full of Rye","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Pocketfull-of-Rye.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24633,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24633","url_meta":{"origin":12893,"position":3},"title":"Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories","author":"Michelle","date":"June 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories (1985) Agatha Christie The Thirteen Problems (1932) 1. The Tuesday Night Club (1927) 2. The Idol House of Astarte (1928) 3. Ingots of Gold (1928) 4. The Bloodstained Pavement (1928) 5. Motive v. Opportunity (1928) 6. The Thumbmark of St. Peter (1928) 7. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "10\/10"","block_context":{"text":"10\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/10-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Miss Marple The Complete Short Stories","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Miss-Marple-The-Complete-Short-Stories.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20897,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/20897","url_meta":{"origin":12893,"position":4},"title":"The Body in the Library","author":"Michelle","date":"April 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The Body in the Library (1942) Agatha Christie (Miss Marple) The second Miss Marple book has both Miss Marple and Sir Henry Clithering. One of the things I always loved Agatha Christie books is how descriptive they can be. The gay, laughing expression on his face was wiped off as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Body in the Library","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/The-Body-in-the-Library.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3463,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3463","url_meta":{"origin":12893,"position":5},"title":"The Thirteen Problems","author":"Michelle","date":"January 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Thirteen Problems (1928, 1929, 1930, 1933) Agatha Christie (Also published as The Tuesday Club Murders) I read several stories in this collection, but not all, so I don't think I'd previously read this collection as is. After dinner seems a good time to sit around and discuss crime, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Thirteen Problems","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/thirteen-problems.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}