Death in the Clouds
A poisoned dart on the midday flight from Paris to Croydon.
Death in the Clouds is a Hercule Poirot novel by Agatha Christie, published in 1935, featuring Poirot and Chief Inspector Japp. It is a closed-circle mystery: the victim is a passenger on a cross-Channel flight, and the killer can only be one of the eleven other passengers and crew. In the US it was published as Death in the Air.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Agatha Christie
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Series
- Hercule Poirot
- Genre
- Crime novel
- Publisher
- Dodd, Mead and Company
- Published
- 10 March 1935
- Format
- Print (hardback & paperback)
Lore & Background
Poirot is flying from Le Bourget in Paris to Croydon when a steward finds that the French moneylender Madame Giselle is dead. Poirot dismisses the idea of a wasp sting and finds a poisoned dart on the floor; the police then find a blowpipe in the side of his own seat. Working with Japp in England and Inspector Fournier in France, he learns that Giselle had an estranged daughter, Anne Morisot, who stands to inherit her fortune - and who is later found dead on the boat-train to Boulogne.
Reader's Guide
Giselle's killer was the dentist Norman Gale, who sought her fortune. He changed into his dentist's coat to pose as a steward and stabbed her with the dart while delivering a spoon; the wasp, released from a matchbox, and the planted blowpipe were meant to mislead. He had married Anne, knowing she was Giselle's daughter, and killed her once she claimed her inheritance.
More in Cases & Stories
Elsewhere in Hercule Poirot
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