Rating: 
Summary: absolutely marvelous!!!
Review: " A pocket full of rye" is maybe one of Agatha`s best book ever.My eyes were glued to the book `till the end.If you`re a Christie fanatic,read it!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: A CLASSIC ENGLISH WHODUNIT
Review: A Pocket Full of Rye brings out the best of Dame Agatha. It combines the classic English murder mystery with a nursery rhyme to produce a mystifying turn of events. I am not overly fond of Miss Marple, but I have to admit that she performs delightfully well in this book. It is with the most acute of minds that Christie uses another nursery rhyme to carryout her murders--there is that sense of inevitability and pattern that comes along with it. Christie is a master of the classic and cutting-edge. This is one of her better classics.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Plot, Excellent Execution Combine for Great Read
Review: Agatha Christie gives us an excellent addition to her "nursery rhyme" mysteries with this one. The king in the counting house counting out his money is Rex Fortescue, financial giant who dies at his London office in the course of a normal working day. For reasons unknown, his coat contains a pocket full of rye. The queen in the parlour who was eating bread and honey is his young second wife, rumored to have married him for his money. Although she is the first suspect, her murder the following afternoon after a tea of scones and honey, shifts suspicion. That same afternoon, the housemaid Glady Martin is also found dead. While unpegging clothes from the clothesline, someone strangled her with a stocking and left a clothespin attached to her nose to complete the rhyme's final line "When there came a little bird and nipped off her nose." It is the death of the maid that brings Miss Jane Marple into the case. Gladys had been one of the village girls Miss Marple had trained for domestic service. Miss Marple considers it her duty to find the person who killed Gladys, and with Inspector Neele, the investigator in charge of the case, she does just that. The book is filled with possible suspects: Percival, the eldest son along with his wife and daughter; a younger son Lancelot and his wife; Miss Effie Ramsbottom, an elderly aunt; and several suspicious servants. Once again, it is Miss Marple's life-long experience with wickedness and her understanding of a young girl's mind that leads her to the solution of this outstanding mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Plot, Excellent Execution Combine for Great Read
Review: Agatha Christie gives us an excellent addition to her "nursery rhyme" mysteries with this one. The king in the counting house counting out his money is Rex Fortescue, financial giant who dies at his London office in the course of a normal working day. For reasons unknown, his coat contains a pocket full of rye. The queen in the parlour who was eating bread and honey is his young second wife, rumored to have married him for his money. Although she is the first suspect, her murder the following afternoon after a tea of scones and honey, shifts suspicion. That same afternoon, the housemaid Glady Martin is also found dead. While unpegging clothes from the clothesline, someone strangled her with a stocking and left a clothespin attached to her nose to complete the rhyme's final line "When there came a little bird and nipped off her nose." It is the death of the maid that brings Miss Jane Marple into the case. Gladys had been one of the village girls Miss Marple had trained for domestic service. Miss Marple considers it her duty to find the person who killed Gladys, and with Inspector Neele, the investigator in charge of the case, she does just that. The book is filled with possible suspects: Percival, the eldest son along with his wife and daughter; a younger son Lancelot and his wife; Miss Effie Ramsbottom, an elderly aunt; and several suspicious servants. Once again, it is Miss Marple's life-long experience with wickedness and her understanding of a young girl's mind that leads her to the solution of this outstanding mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Plot, Excellent Execution Combine for Great Read
Review: Agatha Christie gives us an excellent addition to her "nursery rhyme" mysteries with this one. The king in the counting house counting out his money is Rex Fortescue, financial giant who dies at his London office in the course of a normal working day. For reasons unknown, his coat contains a pocket full of rye. The queen in the parlour who was eating bread and honey is his young second wife, rumored to have married him for his money. Although she is the first suspect, her murder the following afternoon after a tea of scones and honey, shifts suspicion. That same afternoon, the housemaid Glady Martin is also found dead. While unpegging clothes from the clothesline, someone strangled her with a stocking and left a clothespin attached to her nose to complete the rhyme's final line "When there came a little bird and nipped off her nose." It is the death of the maid that brings Miss Jane Marple into the case. Gladys had been one of the village girls Miss Marple had trained for domestic service. Miss Marple considers it her duty to find the person who killed Gladys, and with Inspector Neele, the investigator in charge of the case, she does just that. The book is filled with possible suspects: Percival, the eldest son along with his wife and daughter; a younger son Lancelot and his wife; Miss Effie Ramsbottom, an elderly aunt; and several suspicious servants. Once again, it is Miss Marple's life-long experience with wickedness and her understanding of a young girl's mind that leads her to the solution of this outstanding mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Not many suspects, but buckets full of red herrings.
Review: Almost every formula, idea, and trick that Agatha Christie used in her detective fiction works proved to be entirely successful and won her an enormous reading public. Making use of nursery rhymes was one such formula. Nursery rhymes can reawaken the sense of wonder, mystery and enchantment in any reader. They also can carry symbolic levels of meaning, and some are allegories. In this her 1953 offering she makes use of the nursery rhyme “Sing A Song Of Sixpence”. Appropriately it is one of her Miss Marple books. Although her elderly spinster sleuth has little to do here, and is late making her appearance, it is she who perceives and urges the significance of the nursery rhyme. “Don’t you see, it makes a pattern to all this.” The murders occur in the disfunctional family of Rex Fortescue, a financier, and the action occurs in his London office and in the family home, Yew Tree Lodge. The opening chapters are wonderfully engaging. Agatha Christie, when she took the trouble, could sketch characters vividly. Amongst all of them in this book, there are not more than a handful of suspects. To compensate, Mrs Christie throws in buckets full of red herrings. You’ll enjoy the puzzle, and having innumerable theories suggested and dismissed. The solution, when it comes, however, is no more plausible than is the likelihood of a blackbird pecking off a maid’s nose.
Rating:
Summary: Not many suspects, but buckets full of red herrings.
Review: Almost every formula, idea, and trick that Agatha Christie used in her detective fiction works proved to be entirely successful and won her an enormous reading public. Making use of nursery rhymes was one such formula. Nursery rhymes can reawaken the sense of wonder, mystery and enchantment in any reader. They also can carry symbolic levels of meaning, and some are allegories. In this her 1953 offering she makes use of the nursery rhyme "Sing A Song Of Sixpence". Appropriately it is one of her Miss Marple books. Although her elderly spinster sleuth has little to do here, and is late making her appearance, it is she who perceives and urges the significance of the nursery rhyme. "Don't you see, it makes a pattern to all this." The murders occur in the disfunctional family of Rex Fortescue, a financier, and the action occurs in his London office and in the family home, Yew Tree Lodge. The opening chapters are wonderfully engaging. Agatha Christie, when she took the trouble, could sketch characters vividly. Amongst all of them in this book, there are not more than a handful of suspects. To compensate, Mrs Christie throws in buckets full of red herrings. You'll enjoy the puzzle, and having innumerable theories suggested and dismissed. The solution, when it comes, however, is no more plausible than is the likelihood of a blackbird pecking off a maid's nose. If you can obtain the unabridged reading of the book by Rosemary Leach, your enjoyment will be enhanced. Rosemary Leach is unusually skilled at "doing" the voices of a large cast of characters, male and female.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of Christie's best.
Review: Although this mystery is written with Agatha Christie's signature style, it falls far below her best work. Every suspect is guilty of something, but which is guilty of murder? There are many twists in this unusual plot with a child's nursery rhyme always in the back of your mind. And, of course, there is a red herring. Don't let this title be your first of Christie's novels
Rating:
Summary: CLEVER
Review: As usual with her books based off of nursery rhymes, Christie makes a clever read with this novel. (Think And Then There Were None, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe...) The fact that all the characters are easily potential suspects until they get killed off only makes this case a little more baffling and a little more fascinating. DO buy this if you've read some of Christie and are looking for a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: Another of Dame Agatha's Twisted Nursery Rhymes
Review: Christie wrote several books with nursery rhymes themes, HICKORY DICKORY DEATH being another. She also dealt with dysfunctional families several times, HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS and 4:50 FROM PADDINGTON were two. In this work she combined the two ideas. Rex Fortescue was a very rich and quite unpleasant man. He ran his family and his business with an iron fist. One morning his very efficient secretary took in his morning tea and found him dying. While investigating his death the police were met with one puzzle after another, what killed Mr. Fortescue?, how was it administered? and why did he have a pocket full of rye grain? As they were beginning to get some answers another murder occurred and then yet another each bringing more confusion to the scene. Jane Marple arrives to the house and begins to sort through the tangle of clues to steer the police in the right direction. This story may seem quite familiar. The Fortescue family is Christie's standard - domineering, wealthy father who keeps most of his family trapped in the family home, under his control. An errant "black sheep" child returns just as the murders begin and there are many family secrets. Although the story is somewhat formulistic it is still a well told tale and a fairly laid out puzzle. All the clues are there for the reader to use to try to solve the mystery before the last chapter. The only drawbacks for Miss Marple fans are that Miss Marple doesn't arrive nearly half way through the book and that it is not set in St. Mary Mead.
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