Heaven: January Book Club - A Murder is Announced, by Agatha Christie
Hi - happy new year to all! The book for January is A Murder is Announced, by Agatha Christie, which was first published in 1950, and was her 50th book (according to Wikipedia, anyway, though be careful with reading that page if you haven't read this book before, as it does have spoilers). If it is your first time reading the book, it will be interesting to think about how the clues work, whether they help or are red herrings, and whether you can predict 'whodunnit', or if it's a complete surprise.
We can also look at any other Agatha Christie books people might want to discuss - we can have a general discussion as well as discussing this particular book. I'll post some questions around the 20th January.
We can also look at any other Agatha Christie books people might want to discuss - we can have a general discussion as well as discussing this particular book. I'll post some questions around the 20th January.
Comments
I thought the book had more clues - but perhaps subtler clues, and some you couldn't really put into a movie. Though I haven't read this since I was a teenager, while I have seen the movie version (the Geraldine McEwan one) a lot more recently, so I am curious to reread it and see if it is as I remember.
Link
If you are interested in that aspect of her writing you might enjoy “Queering Agatha Christie: Revisiting the Golden Age of Detective Fiction” by J.C. Bernthal.
Thanks, Doublethink - I just listened to it and enjoyed it, and it is reminding me why I liked this book. I agree with some of the criticisms of it too, particularly the way Mitzi is portrayed - even as a teenager, I found that uncomfortable, that humour is created from her being a traumatised regugee.
Thanks for mentioning the podcast Doublethink.
That’s one of the podcasts that got me through 2020 vaguely sane, currently they’ve done about 50 episodes of the free, and at least a dozen related Patreon episodes.
For example, The Third Girl (published 1966) is about swinging London flatshares with psychedelic overtones, Nemesis, the last Marple written, published in 1971, has a very 70s vibes with long haired young men in flares. Both are very different books from The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1921) with its interwar atmosphere or Sparkling Cyanide from 1945 and reflecting its post-war era, with references to war experiences.
One of the things I find fascinating about Christie is she writes about the era she's living through, so mores, attitudes and language change.
I once spotted the murderer by reading the cast of characters at the beginning of the book. She was the only one who appeared not to have a motive.
Nope, I didn't know either, had just assumed that 'flu was always with us.
My mother told me that there used to be a brother and sister who lived in the house down the road as man and wife, but nobody did anything about it.
The hamlet where my parents lived in later life used to have house in which two sisters lived, but with the house divided down the middle. One of the other houses there had a mural painted on the ceiling of the sitting room by a man dressed as Robin Hood.
And then there were full on feuds about the funding of a music festival by a rich donor to the local church and a falling out between the folk running the community centre and those running the church hall (both facilities served a set of small villages.)
Which is the short way of saying - I can well believe in the weirdness of villages - sometimes even midsummer doesn’t seem so much of a stretch.
“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
1. Was this your first time reading the book or a reread?
2. If a reread, what things did you notice that you hadn't noticed in the first reading?
3. If your first time, or if you can remember your first time, reading it, which clues did you pick up on, and which did you not notice? And did anyone work out whodunnit from the clues?
4. If you have read other Agatha Christies, are there any that you find have particular things in common with this book? Did reading this remind you of other Agatha Christie books, or even other books of the time by other authors?
5. What did you think of the characters? Were there any that you felt particularly drawn to, who you enjoyed, or liked, or found entertaining? Were there any that you didn't like, or found boring, or poorly portrayed? And did your feelings about any characters change over the course of the novel?
6. Have you seen any of the TV adaptations of this book, and if so, what were your thoughts? Were there some aspects of the book you thought couldn't be portrayed effectively via film? Or any aspects of the book you thought were portrayed better via film?
7. Was there anything you found not very believable in the story? Anything where you thought this doesn't quite work?
8. What were your overall thoughts and feelings about the book? Its strengths and weaknesses?
1. It was a reread for me, over thirty years since I last read it.
2. I noticed that the narrative actually sometimes shared what was going on in Letty (Lotty) Blacklock's head - quite near the start, in fact, giving a few glimpses of what she is thinking or feeling, so you feel you trust her. But they are always kind of double meaning - when you know she is the killer, the thoughts have a different implications.
3. I didn't notice the two spellings of enquire/inquire at all when I first read it. Seems kind of obvious now I know, but at the time, I think even if I'd noticed, I wouldn't have thought anything of it, because it always seemed quite normal to me that a word could have two spellings, especially growing up with American books and older books, so I read books where words were spelt differently. I did notice the Letty/Lotty thing, but honestly thought it was a typo the first time, and the second time I just thought maybe that was another shortening of the name that Bunny used, and it didn't occur to me that it was a clue. I didn't work out that Letty/Lotty was the killer - I was surprised when I first read it.
4. When I first read it, it made me think of The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side, because that one also has the murderer framing things so that you think she was the intended victim, and you also develop a kind of sympathy for her, though she is very different from Letty/Lotty Blacklock.
5. I liked Philippa, and when I first read it, I did guess that she was Pip, though I had no idea how that related to anything! I liked her straightforwardness, and took her side when Julia and Patrick were being a bit snobby and sneery about her. I didn't like Julia, though by the end of the book, I had a bit more respect for her. I liked Hinch and Murgatroyd - I didn't understand when I read it at 14 that they were lesbians, but I understood that they had a close relationship, and were a bit eccentric, and I warmed to them. I really liked Letty/Lotty Blacklock when I first read it - she came across as a strong character, sensible, likeable, and there seems something a bit jarring when you realise she is the killer. I didn't like how Mitzi is portrayed - it seems to stem from a mindset that doesn't believe trauma, and the atrocities of the holocaust, because the whole time the idea is that she is exaggerating and lying about her family members being killed, and Agatha Christie seems to be suggesting this herself and making humour from it. But from her behaviour, she does seem genuinely traumatised. I can only think Agatha Christie must have met such people and assumed they were lying.
6. I think I've seen them both, but the earlier one I saw years ago, shortly after I read it, and can't remember it too clearly, other than they changed the name of the cat to Jezebel. I don't think I particularly liked it - I was much more struck with the more modern version, even though it missed out more from the book, and the actors stayed in my mind more. I think the kind of clues given in the book, and the complexity of all the relationships, is a bit fiddly for a film version - works better in the book - so the film needs to be simplified quite a bit.
7. This time when I read it, something that struck me as unbelievable was that Letty and Lotty would have identical characters other than a moral weakness in one of them. It seems to fail to take into consideration the complex effect it would have on someone to live their life as a recluse, sensitive ashamed of their appearance. No matter how similar Letty and Lotty were by nature, I can't conceive that Lotty would have the same level of social confidence and common sense as her sister, who had been out in the world working and being respected and highly thought of, while she had been a recluse, afraid of being seen because of a disfigurement. Other than the idea that she'd been so bored and deprived of adventure that it was exciting to host a murder, there was nothing to suggest this had had any effect on her whatsoever. I don't think she'd have been able to simply 'become' Letty in character.
8. Overall, I like it, and I find the plot very clever and satisfying - it all works out very well, everything is accounted for, and I find it a clever twist that the murderer is the one person you don't (or I didn't, at least) think to consider. Only the enquire/inquire clue doesn't quite work for me, and the fact that Lotty was naturally the confident, sensible person her sister was, with only a moral weakness to make them different, some inability to see between right and wrong - that all seems too simplistic. And the scenes with Mitzi made me uncomfortable. Especially at the end when they got Mitzi to basically risk her life, and this was seen as a good thing, because it helped her feel proud that she'd saved them all.
It's amazing how so many fictional English villages are chock full of characters, with hardly any "ordinary" people!
One thing I do recall as a favourite device of Christie's is that the culprit frequently turns out - unbeknown to everyone else - to be the long-lost but distant relative of the deceased, who owing to somewhat obscure provisions of English law turns out to be main beneficiary of the deceased's estate. But I think this story sets a record in that , by my count, not just the murderer but no fewer 4 out of the 6 inhabitants of the victim's house turn out to be not who they say they are!
4. If you have read other Agatha Christies, are there any that you find have particular things in common with this book? Did reading this remind you of other Agatha Christie books, or even other books of the time by other authors?
The village setting with the social mix dominated by the squirocracy recurs in most of her books, and the fact that Miss Marple has friends in every village! I found the number of people committing identity theft pretty implausible – but it’s a recurring feature of Christie’s books if not to that degree.
5. What did you think of the characters? Were there any that you felt particularly drawn to, who you enjoyed, or liked, or found entertaining? Were there any that you didn't like, or found boring, or poorly portrayed? And did your feelings about any characters change over the course of the novel?
I concur with most people’s feelings about the way Mitzi was portrayed, once it was clear she was not one of those pretending to be someone else. I liked the Hitch/Murgatroyd couple – though in fact female pairs living together were pretty common in England in the 1950s and 60s, lesbian or not. I attended a girls’ grammar school in the 1960s, and I remember at least two female couples (who lived together, quite openly) on the staff – we girls certainly assumed they were lesbian (mind you, we thought that all the more obviously single women were the mourning fiancees of RAF pilots, such is teenage imagination). Remember that in England in 1950 male homosexual activity was illegal, but lesbianism wasn’t, reputedly because Queen Victoria didn’t think it was possible.
7. Was there anything you found not very believable in the story? Anything where you thought this doesn't quite work?
The sheer numbers of people pretending to be someone else stretched credulity, and as fineline notes, it’s implausible that the sisters were so alike in temperament after their so very different experiences – or is Christie making a point about nature being dominant over nurture ? I was also a bit unconvinced by the medical elements of the solution. The goitre is seen as only a physical deformity, but surely it would have other effects as well. Having had some thyroid problems myself recently I recognise the complexity and unpredictability of that organ, and find it a little odd that the goitre and then the surgery left Lotty/Letty with no other symptoms apart from a scar. According to Wikipedia thyroxin was available in 1950, so I may be wrong. Does anyone have any more medical insight?
8. What were your overall thoughts and feelings about the book? Its strengths and weaknesses?
Enjoyable, but you definitely had to suspend credulity.
2. If a reread, what things did you notice that you hadn't noticed in the first reading? I spotted the Lotty/Letty confusion from Dora Bunner right away this time, as I remembered the solution. It also seemed far more depressingly racist than I remember.
3. If your first time, or if you can remember your first time, reading it, which clues did you pick up on, and which did you not notice? And did anyone work out whodunnit from the clues? I can't really remember, but I'm pretty sure I would have been suspicious of all the people staying with Miss Blacklock
4. If you have read other Agatha Christies, are there any that you find have particular things in common with this book? Did reading this remind you of other Agatha Christie books, or even other books of the time by other authors? I like the Miss Marple books and they are always full of stock characters like well-meaning vicars, and slightly dubious Indian colonels. There are always assumptions about the lower classes and ones place in society in general.
5. What did you think of the characters? Were there any that you felt particularly drawn to, who you enjoyed, or liked, or found entertaining? Were there any that you didn't like, or found boring, or poorly portrayed? And did your feelings about any characters change over the course of the novel?. I liked Hinch and Murgatroyd, and they seemed the least 'stock' characters in the book, though even they were somewhat stereotypical. Every now and again Christie seemed to be attempting proper characterisation, but then steered away from it.
6. Have you seen any of the TV adaptations of this book, and if so, what were your thoughts? Were there some aspects of the book you thought couldn't be portrayed effectively via film? Or any aspects of the book you thought were portrayed better via film?. I very much enjoyed the Hickson versions, as her Miss Marple came across as almost believable.
7. Was there anything you found not very believable in the story? Anything where you thought this doesn't quite work? It seemed a bit unlikely to me that Miss Blacklock would give lodgings to two distant cousins who she didn't know. I'm also not sure about Miss Blacklock's character. It seems equally unlikely she'd have had Dora come and live with her in the first place.
8. What were your overall thoughts and feelings about the book? Its strengths and weaknesses?. I enjoy Golden Age detective fiction for what it is, I don't expect the stories to be likely to have happened or the characterisation to be strong. I enjoyed it, though I think there are other Christie's I like more. I'm a big fan of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver stories. Similar settings, but her detective seems a tad more credible than Miss Marple.
2. If a reread, what things did you notice that you hadn't noticed in the first reading?
I noticed the Letty/Lotty, iodine, beads, burnt table, switch of lights - I was trying to remember which of the books this was and those dropped clues reminded me how this one was resolved.
3. If your first time, or if you can remember your first time, reading it, which clues did you pick up on, and which did you not notice? And did anyone work out whodunnit from the clues? The first time was so long ago I'm not sure how much I recognised the first time around. I read my first Christie aged 7 or 8, and was allowed to keep reading them as a preteen and young teenager, so what I absorbed and what I understood has changed through the years.
4. If you have read other Agatha Christies, are there any that you find have particular things in common with this book? Did reading this remind you of other Agatha Christie books, or even other books of the time by other authors?
I was initially trying to remember if this was After the Funeral, which has some similar themes, I didn't link it so strongly with The Mirror Crack'd.
5. What did you think of the characters? Were there any that you felt particularly drawn to, who you enjoyed, or liked, or found entertaining? Were there any that you didn't like, or found boring, or poorly portrayed? And did your feelings about any characters change over the course of the novel?
The characters reminded me of a lot of other books written about this time or about the period, where there was a certain brittleness and forced stiff upper lip. Also much uncertainty.
Others have commented on the number of people hiding their identity, but I suspect that was a far more common thing in the 1950s. Lots of other stories by different authors have characters who lift an ID card from someone else's body, leaving their original identity behind, going on to change their lives. Missing paperwork was something everyone just had to live with: my father has no birth certificate because it went up in smoke with the firing of the records office in Cairo when the British retreated in the face of Rommel, along with most of my grandfather's army records. He's not the only one as many, many records offices were bombed or fire damaged.
That attitude to Mitzi, much though I didn't like it, echoed on into the 60s and 70s: I have echoes of "Don't make such a fuss!" ringing through my head, because the English were phlegmatic, weren't they? PTSD was only recognised in the 1980s in the US literature, only really recognised by the British Army this century, trauma is a pretty new concept.
Alongside this lack of official understanding of trauma I also think there was some allowance given when you met people who had changed, because you weren't sure what sort of a war they'd had and any oddities might be put down to having had a bad time. Which could have been why there wasn't much recognition that Lotty wasn't the same as Letty.
6. Have you seen any of the TV adaptations of this book, and if so, what were your thoughts? Were there some aspects of the book you thought couldn't be portrayed effectively via film? Or any aspects of the book you thought were portrayed better via film?
I'm not sure that this domestic murder lends itself so well to film as the period details are so easy to get wrong and jar. I can't remember if I've ever seen any adaptations of this one, but I have seen others.
7. Was there anything you found not very believable in the story? Anything where you thought this doesn't quite work?
I wasn't sure about some of the characterisations: Phillipa and Edmund are not the most convincing of couples at the end, she's such a wooden character without much explanation other than she's keeping things hidden and he's such a poseur that they don't seem to gel.
@fineline's objections to Miss Marple hiding in the cupboard I'd agree with, but it's not the first or last book where Miss Marple is put in danger as part of the denouement.
I'm less surprised about the village make up, my experience of living in villages is that although there will be many other people living in that area just getting on with the day to day living, there are likely to be only a few families that gel in this middle or upper-middle class milieu who socialise together.
8. What were your overall thoughts and feelings about the book? Its strengths and weaknesses?
I thought it stood up better than some of the other books I've reread recently. I've got very frustrated with attitudes in many other books written around this period, whether set then or not, because things have changed so much.