Agatha Christie and the Guilty Pleasure of Poison examines Christie’s female poisoners in the context of Christie’s own experience in pharmacy and of detective fiction. In doing so, it uncovers an overlooked dynamic in which female poisoners deliver well-deserved comeuppance for gendered and classed wrongdoing ordinarily accepted in everyday life. While critics have long recognized male outlaws, like Robin Hood, who use crime to oppose a corrupt system, this book contends that female outlaws – witches and poisoners – offer a similar heritage of empowered femininity. Far from cozy and formulaic, Agatha Christie’s outlaw poisoners offer readers the surprising pleasures of comeuppance, and they set the stage for contemporary detective fiction writers, more recent films depicting poisoning as empowering, and even poison gardens, which are tourist destinations that offer visitors the guilty pleasure of poison.
Author(s): Sylvia A. Pamboukian
Series: Crime Files
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 229
City: Cham
Preface
Acknowledgments
Praise for Agatha Christie and the Guilty Pleasure of Poison
Contents
About the Author
Chapter 1: Agatha Christie, Poison, and Crime
Poison and the Precarious Identity
Agatha Christie, Detection, and Poison
Agatha Christie and the Outlaw
Outlaw Readers
Chapter Guide (and a Warning)
References
Chapter 2: Agatha Christie and Pharmacy
Precarious Pharmacy
Women in the Pharmacy
From Dispensary Assistant to the Queen of Mystery
References
Chapter 3: Dying Game: Unrepentant Outlaws in Christie and Doyle
Ghostly Revenge in Doyle’s “The Leather Funnel”
Comeuppance in Appointment with Death and The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
References
Chapter 4: Cheering Bystanders in Christie and Sayers
Unfair Play in Strong Poison
Triple Outlawry in Five Little Pigs
References
Chapter 5: The Revenger’s Comeuppance in Christie and Jackson
Crooked House and the Naïve Poisoner
We Have Always Lived in the Castle and the Witchy Poisoner
References
Chapter 6: The Poisoner’s Afterlives
Magic Words: Poisoning Stories in “Philomel Cottage”
Class and Power in Gosford Park
Return of the Witchy Poisoner: Phantom Thread and Endeavour
Phantom Thread
Endeavour: “Canticle”
References
Chapter 7: Readers and the Poison Garden
The Potent Plant Garden at Torre Abbey
The Alnwick Poison Garden
The Chelsea Physic Garden
References
Index
