A Fruitful Sunday by Agatha Christie

When grapes gossip, it always turns into raisin eyebrows.

And with that, the 2025 Agatha Christie short-story reading challenge comes to a close! Fanda’s selections ended up being a mixed bag. The Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple stories were clearly the standouts. The Listerdale Mystery collection landed somewhere in the middle, while Partners in Crime (sorry, Tommy and Tuppence) firmly brought up the rear. After a long hiatus, I am honestly a bit shocked that I managed to finish just under the wire. Cue a very deserved pat on the back. Overall, it was a fun experience and gave me a new appreciation for Christie as a short-story writer. The mystery/detective genre really shines in novel form, where there’s room to scatter clues, red herrings, and misdirection while letting characters breathe. Short stories don’t have that luxury, so everything has to be precise and economical. Much to Christie’s credit, she often pulls that off impressively.

A Fruitful Sunday, from The Listerdale Mystery collection, was decent, nothing special. As a fan of puns, I’ll admit the title gave me a chuckle. The setup is simple enough: a married couple heads out for a lazy Sunday drive and picnic, stops at a fruit stand and buys a basket of grapes. Once they’re settled in and enjoying the afternoon, the wife discovers a valuable necklace hidden at the bottom of the basket. Naturally, the husband recalls a recent robbery involving a similar jewel, worth a cool £50,000. Jackpot? Maybe. Except keeping it (or pawning it off) would be tricky because of all the media attention. Bot to mention the small problem of thieves and police likely searching for the thing, putting our picnic-loving couple squarely in danger.

Unfortunately, the climax is pretty silly and more deflating than clever. The upside is that the story is mercifully short and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Still, it would’ve been nice to wrap up this reading challenge with something a bit more memorable or at least less grape-related disappointment.