Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide features a murderer among six dinner guests gathered around a dining table set for seven, one year after a young and glamorous woman was fatally poisoned in that very room.

It's easy to become accustomed to Christie's steady reliability and mistake it for constant, even though her mediocre fare is perfectly palatable. But when she hits a home run, such as she has done here, I am sharply reminded of just how fantastic she is on the stories that rise above the average. From the beginning of this story, I was slowly and methodically lured in for the hook. Christie's story had me constantly guessing and reassessing to try and figure out the whodunit and how.

Whether this is great for all readers or whether it's a different Christie book that is a favorite, it's that draw, pull, and hook that keeps her as a mainstay in the mystery culture, high above all others.

Audiobook, as narrated by Hugh Fraser: Fraser did a great job with this narration — he has become a dependably great voice of Christie for me and I know I can't go wrong with his performances.