This is the fourth or fifth book (it’s hard to tell and
depends who you ask) in which Miss Marple features as the detective and was
first published in 1950. I sometimes think that Miss Marple is my favourite of
the detectives, but I think that I equally like Poirot and Holmes, so it’s hard
to tell.
Anyway A Murder is
Announced is certainly a book I had problems putting down. The more I read
of Agatha Christie the more I like her and she is great at keeping me
intrigued. She’s one of those writers where you have to drag yourself away from
the book by force, because there’s always time for one more page!
The plot follows the story of the attempted murder of a Miss
Blacklock. It all begins rather eerily when a murder is announced as going to
take place at Miss Blacklock’s home. An ad in the local paper serves to bring
half the village to Miss Blacklock’s door at the advertised time for the
murder, each with a different reason to be there. An attempt is made on Miss
Blacklock’s life and of course Miss Marple is there to begin unravelling the
mystery.
As with any good murder mystery there are a number of
murders, and at one point I was concerned that Miss Marple might make it to the
list of victims. But at the heart of this mystery is a tale of stolen identity.
In fact, there were a lot of identities borrowed or stolen. Once you start
working out who everyone really is then the pieces of the puzzle start falling
into place.
One thing I am grateful for is that there has been some
distance between me watching Joan Hickson as Miss Marple in the dramatisations
of these novels. And for books that are so popular I think I have done well to
be able to read these as if for the first time, with no idea of how it is going
to turn out. Which I must say annoys me, just a little, because I do like to be
able to predict the outcome of a book. But these are so good I don’t mind at all.
If you’ve never read one of Agatha Christie’s novels you
need to give it a go and find out why they are so popular. I was worried that I
would be disappointed, but they have more than exceeded my expectations. There
have been a few nights where I should definitely have gone to bed earlier but I
just needed to know what was going to happen next. Really I should make sure
that I have enough time to read the whole thing in one go!
Next stop on the Agatha Christie binge is They do it with Mirrors. I’m guessing that
I shouldn’t start reading it just before bed!
