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I’m going to focus on one book in particular, and that of course has to be Sparkling Cyanide .
    Sparkling Cyanide , or Remembered Death in the United States, was written by Christie in 1945. The story centres on thewell-to-do Barton family and a small group of friends, acquaintances and hangers-on. The novel opens with the recollection of events surrounding the dramatic death of Rosemary Barton at the Luxembourg restaurant by those who witnessed it. Seven people had dined together to celebrate a birthday; the lights went up after the cabaret, Barton took a sip from her champagne glass and then dropped dead, face down on the table, with her face blue and fingers twitching from convulsions. It was declared that death was from potassium cyanide poisoning, and the verdict was suicide.
    Six months later, Rosemary’s husband George Barton receives an anonymous note suggesting that Rosemary was murdered. Rather than do the sensible thing and tell the police, George embarks on an elaborate but insane plan to expose his wife’s murderer. Exactly one year after the dreadful ‘suicide’, George gathers together the six diners who were present at the original party. George also hires an actress, made up to look like Rosemary, with the idea being to have her appear during the dinner and startle a confession out of the murderer. The plan fails spectacularly; when George drinks a toast to the memory of his late wife he suddenly turns purple and falls flat on the table. It takes one and a half minutes for him to die, his drink being laced with the same poison as his wife’s, one year previously. Fortunately, George had revealed some of his suspicions and plans to his friend, Colonel Race, an intelligence officer, who then works with the police to solve the crime.
    In 1945, many poisons were terrifyingly easy to obtain and few antidotes were available. Thankfully things have changed, but cyanide still has a reputation as a horrible and frighteningly effective poison – and with good reason.
    The cyanide story
    The name ‘cyanide’ comes from the Greek word kyanos meaning ‘dark blue’, but by quite a roundabout route. Prussian Blue ([Fe 7 (CN) 18 ]), an intense blue pigment commonly used by artists, was the compound used in 1752 to produce hydrogen cyanide (HCN), or prussic acid as it was called, by the Frenchchemist Pierre Macquer (1718–1784). ‘Cyanide’ was therefore the name given to molecules containing a cyanide unit, even though very few of them are blue.
    Cyanide is simply two atoms, one of carbon and one of nitrogen, bonded together as a unit (–CN) that forms part of a larger molecule. There are a staggering number of cyanide compounds, and they occur throughout the natural world as well as in synthetic versions. Their toxicity depends on the ease with which the bond between the cyanide unit and the rest of the molecule can be broken. For example, the bond between cyanide and a hydrogen atom in hydrogen cyanide (H–CN) is very easily broken, and the compound is therefore extremely toxic; 50–150mg can kill an adult. However, the same cyanide unit bonded to a methyl group to form methyl cyanide (CH 3 –CN) is much less toxic (by a factor of approximately 5,000) 34 because the bond is more difficult to break. If accidentally ingested, most of the methyl cyanide would be excreted by the body long before the cyanide could be released.
    Many plants contain cyanide compounds, but some are more dangerous than others. It depends on the type and amount of cyanide compound present. The seeds or pits of plants of the genus Prunus all contain cyanide; the stones or pips of peaches, cherries, apples and bitter almonds can be particularly dangerous and potentially lethal in large quantities. This is because the seeds contain cyanide in the form of a compound called amygdalin, which is readily metabolised by enzymes in the small intestine to release hydrogen cyanide.
    Agatha Christie often refers to the scent of bitter almonds,