stonepicnicking_okapi

This series of entries is commentary on my lifelong quest to read all of Agatha Christie's works in UK publication order.

So with A Murder is Announced we move from the 1940's into the 1950's. A Murder is Announced is one of my favourite books because we get Miss Marple and Hinch and Murgatroyd, as far as I can remember, the only cannonical Boston marriage in all of Christie's bibliography. I watched the 1985 version with Joan Hickson. You can listen to Joan Hickson read here on YT.

So the opening premise is:

A notice appears in the local newspaper for Chipping Cleghorn: "A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, 29 October, at Little Paddocks, at 6.30 pm. Friends accept this, the only intimation."

I am going to squee, so I'll put it in a cut.

I find it very funny. In the beginning Mrs. Swettenham is going through the notices in the local paper with funny commentary. And there's the usual complaint about servants.

Oh dear me, nowadays unless one has an old Nannie in the family, who will go into the kitchen and do everything, one is simply sunk."

"Well, why haven't we an old Nannie?" Edmund who reads the Daily Worker but doesn't do any 'real work' according to his mother.

"You had an ayah, dear."

"No foresight."

She says such funny things (like when talking about all the dachshunds for sale in the paper): I do like a dog with legs.

And the cat at the vicarage is named Tiglath Pileser (an Assyrian king--which if you know about Christie and her archeologist husband makes perfect sense)

And it's here Miss Marple mentions her admiration for artists Blair Leighton and Alma Tadema. I have two Alma Tadema stickers left and will do spreads with them shortly. I also have some of collage of chrysanthemums which play a role in the plot and I am waiting on some 3D stickers to do a proper spread with them. So I will do a series of Murder is Announced spreads.

Then we have Miss Marple explaining what a 'fall guy' is because she reads Dashiel Hammett stories so I have visions of this old spinster with her Continental Op paperback, pouring over American slang as she nibbles her cheese straws.

And we have Miss Marple being funny: "I really prefer the old-fashioned remedy of big balck bottles of medicine. After all, one can always pour those down the sink."

But mostly I like Hinch and Murgatroyd who have a pig farm (they also keep hens and ducks) and Murgatroyd is the scatty one who walks around in her bedroom slippers and Hinch (I quit counting the number of times she was referred to as 'mannish' and WE KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!) is the smart and tough one. But they try to re-enact the crime and they stumble upon a key observation. I really love their parts of the book.

And Miss Marple is comfort to Hinch at the end. I think she's a real ally. We know from A Caribbean Mystery that she knows what a queer is and she doesn't object to her house sitter being one. And here I think we see her validating the love between Hinch and Murgatroyd.

The 1985 version makes Hinch a tiny bit too caustic but what they really get wrong is stature. Hinch is supposed to be as tall as a man and the two actress are at best the same height and one shot Murgatroyd is much taller.

But I love them. I want them to live happily ever after with their pigs and ducks.

Next up: They Came to Baghdad which I don't remember.