Read Christie 2021: A murder is announced

A book where Classifieds are to die for!

Name: A murder is announced

Writer: Agatha Christie

Country: United Kingdom

Year: 1950

Genre: Crime novel

Synopsis:

"A Murder is Announced" is a staple of crime fiction and often considered as the best Miss Marple novel. The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple who is staying nearby, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.’ Is this a childish practical joke? Or a hoax intended to scare poor Letitia Blacklock? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd gathers at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out…

Review

The July book for Read Christie 2021 Challenge has as its theme “a story starring a vicar”, and the chosen work was Murder is announced. However, it is not really the vicar who helps in solving the crime, as he ends up being too busy with his sermons and extreme unctions. In fact, the star of the 'party' is the beloved old lady Miss Marple.

Agatha Christie has always provided us with interesting and mysterious crimes, and this work does not go out of the ordinary.

‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m. Friends, show up, it will be a unique advertisement.»

A murder is announced in the local newspaper, making the whole village curious. Letitia Blacklock, the owner of Little Paddocks, where the crime is to take place, decides to welcome the neighbours even though she has no idea who placed the strange advertisement. That's when the crime happens, leaving everyone in an uproar. No one seems to have seen anything concrete and the police have no idea how to solve the case. When Inspector Craddock seems to be able to give up, Miss Marple appears, the friendly and shrewd old lady, who helps him find the culprit.

Christie's stories in which I discovered the killer or how everything unfolded even before the answer to the case was revealed are rare. The works of this author have such complex plots that it is difficult not to get lost along the way or be deceived by the clues that she leaves behind. However, and after reading some of the author's works, I quickly began to suspect how the crime could have been committed, as well as the culprit. Although information was emerging that diverted our attention to other directions, I ended up being right in my suspicions, despite remaining completely in the dark about the reason for the crime to occur.

In my opinion, although the character Miss Marple participates a little more in the story than usual, I still feel that it is still not enough for me to be enchanted by this character created by the queen of crime. Another aspect that I found interesting in this story is the emphasis that the author gives to the police, which does not always happen in her other works.

Christie has a flowing writing that makes us not want to stop reading. However, I must confess that I didn't really like the last pages of the book. After Miss Marple and the Inspector explained how they solved the case, the story took a turn of somewhat awkward dialogues, which made me confused and not knowing if the action had changed location or if it had been some time after the meeting with the inspector. Even so, I liked the book.

Whisper of the Heart

Murder is announced was published in 1950 and is the 5th book to feature Miss Marple. It is considered a classic of its kind.

In this work we are treated to many different characters. Twin brothers, nosy neighbours, brainless childhood friends, lying and foreign servants, etc. As I read it, I realized that the author placed many elements that perhaps in her time were common or quite discussed and which I will list below. One of the aspects that I noticed again in this work is the fact that the author, once again, uses an English rural village as a crime scene and describes it as a place full of intrigue and jealousy, where everyone seems to know each other. I don't know if it's due to stories like these, which are quite common in detective books, which make me still have the idea that English villages are not what they seem.

Another aspect that caught my attention was the emphasis given to war refugees, which in Christie's time should have been quite a lot, as the end of the Second World War was still quite recent. In fact, this was a point that intrigued me, as the author conveys the idea through Mitzi, Letitia Blacklock's maid, that refugees were seen as liars, who liked to victimize themselves and who did not trust the police. This is contradictory, bearing in mind that one of the author's most famous characters is actually a Belgian war refugee, who seeks above all the truth of the facts and who works with Scotland Yard, in other words, Hercule Poirot. I wonder if Christie didn't use Mitzi to bring attention to the subject in her time and to remind oneself that even liars can tell the truth from time to time.

However, it is not only these aspects that are covered in the story and that caught my attention. We also have Edmund Swettenham and the rise of communist ideas across the country, bothering the old-fashion colonels; the desertion of soldiers and the shame that came with it; and based on conversations between Edmund and his mother, the idea that being a writer was not a real job.

I confess that I really liked the emphasis given by the author to apparently brainless or silly female characters, such as Miss Bunny, Miss Murgatroyd and Diana 'Bunch' Harmon. These were characters who turned out to be very perceptive but unable to understand the importance of what they actually saw. I really liked the character of Bunch, a woman who admits to having a childish and silly personality, but who, in my opinion, turned out to be much smarter than some more serious characters. Christie ends up demonstrating in this way the importance that each one of us has regardless of our acumen and intelligence.

And in closing, let me just vent how much, in my opinion, the friendship of Miss Murgatroyd and Miss Hinchliffe, two friends who live in a cottage, could arouse suspicion and rumor if the book were written in modern times. However, I doubt that this was Christie's idea when she created them.

Rating -🟉🟉🟉🟉🟉🟉🟉 (7)