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.

Links Christie's impact to literary and cultural trends outside of puzzle plots Rejects the conservative closure of the detective plot in favor of a more radical reading experience Explores modern phenomena in relation to Golden Age fiction

Autorentext

Formerly a pharmacist, Dr. Sylvia A. Pamboukian is a professor of English at Robert Morris University near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the author of Doctoring the Novel: Medicine and Quackery from Shelley to Doyle, and her research and teaching interests include British literature, detective fiction, the Victorian Gothic, and the health humanities.

Inhalt

1. Agatha Christie, Poison, and Crime.- 2. Agatha Christie and Pharmacy.- 3. Dying Game: Unrepentant Outlaws in Christie and Doyle.- 4. Cheering Bystanders in Christie and Sayers.- 5. The Revenger's Comeuppance in Christie and Jackson.- 6. The Poisoner's Afterlives.- 7. Readers and the Poison Garden.