From nasal sprays to spreads: The deadliest ways to kill a character

August 7, 2026 — 11:11am

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When we were all in a tizz about a recent murder trial involving mushrooms, the most common comment was “Isn’t it just like an Agatha Christie novel?”

The Queen of Crime was a great aficionado of death by mushroom or toadstool, and she used the device in at least four novels. Florrie Gibbs in Murder is Easy supposedly dies of poisoned mushrooms that she picked herself. There’s a poisoned mushroom stew in By the Pricking of my Thumbs and a poisoned sage and mushroom soup in The Secret of Chimneys. In The 4.50 from Paddington, Lucy Eylesbarrow creates a dish with mushrooms that is blamed for the entire household becoming ill.

The 4.50 from Paddington is one of librarian Melissa Jones’s favourite Christie novels. It’s a Miss Marple mystery, but a lot of the........

© Brisbane Times