Agatha Christie’s Death in the Clouds (1935) delivers a compact, satisfying Hercule Poirot mystery with a mid-flight murder in an airliner en route from Paris to Croydon. With no passing tramp to blame and eleven passengers and crew sealed aloft, the crime unfolds in a true closed circle – the sort of setup that promises ingenuity, and the exercise of Poirot’s little grey cells. 

The victim is Madame Giselle, an unappealing Parisian moneylender given to blackmail. Poirot himself is on board (suffering from airsickness), together with a buzzing wasp, and motley assortment of characters all of whom are suspects. There’s also a blowpipe and a dart poisoned with snake venom. What follows is a meticulous investigation as Poirot sifts opportunity, motive, and the smallest clues.

One of the book’s pleasures is its precise, orderly detail. Christie catalogs the contents of travellers’ luggage with forensic care: not mere texture but evidence. Flapjacks, a shagreen fitted dressing case, Tauchnitz novels, cocaine, a matchbox, a flute, personal possessions – all are laid out methodically, revealing character and clues in ways that are period-specific and cleverly functional.

The suspects’ addresses – Shepherd’s Avenue in Muswell Hill, Shoeblack Lane Wandsworth,  Grosvenor Square, Little Paddocks in Sussex – anchor the story in a tangible pre-war England. The sparse, uncluttered belongings make every item into a potential key detail.

The aircraft itself adds to the charm. Christie’s Prometheus would have a Handley Page H.P.42, then in service with Imperial Airways, the forerunner of British Airways – a stately biplane airliner known for safety and upholstered comfort. 

Humour threads lightly through the narrative: Poirot who reports he has sometimes been mistaken for a hairdresser, the over-the-top mystery-writer with a fondness for bananas, Japp’s disdain for psychological theories, and the inquest in which the xenophobia jury finds Poirot guilty – only for the coroner to dismiss the verdict outright. It’s a jokey, creaky conceit that adds to the entertainment.

Far-fetched – exotic poisons, improbable coincidences, and some rather outré connections – but Parbleu! it’s all part of the Golden Age charm. “Nothing can be so misleading as observation,” Poirot reminds us, and Christie proves it with deft misdirection and a tidy, satisfying resolution.

For a cold winter afternoon, this is classic Christie comfort reading: brisk, neatly engineered, and rich with period detail. Not her absolute pinnacle, perhaps, but a graceful little flight – compact, clever, and safely landed.