A Murder is Announced (Miss Marple)
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Review
‘Establishes firmly her claim to the throne of detection. The plot is as ingenious as ever… the dialogue both wise and witty; while the suspense is maintained very skilfully until the final revelation.’ A.A. Milne
‘As good as Agatha Christie ever wrote.’ Robert Barnard
‘In her own sphere there is no one to touch her, and her millions of readers are going to buy A Murder is Announced and like it.’
Margery Allingham
‘A super-smooth Christie – three neat murders in an English village, [and] an assortment of her famous red herrings, all beautifully marinaded.’ New York Times Book Review
Review
'Establishes firmly her claim to the throne of detection. The plot is as ingenious as ever! the dialogue both wise and witty; while the suspense is maintained very skilfully until the final revelation.' A.A. Milne 'As good as Agatha Christie ever wrote.' Robert Barnard 'In her own sphere there is no one to touch her, and her millions of readers are going to buy A Murder is Announced and like it.' Margery Allingham 'A super-smooth Christie -- three neat murders in an English village, [and] an assortment of her famous red herrings, all beautifully marinaded.' New York Times Book Review
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's very tempting to rate this as the quintessential "cosy English murder mystery" but such pigeonholing would be lazy and far from accurate. This, arguably the best of the novel-length Miss Marple stories, has a surprisingly dark and at times brutal quality. The narrative is complex enough to draw you in without losing you in a blizzard of barely glimpsed supporting characters/necessary red herrings (an occasional Christie failing). The recording itself is faultless; it's not just that Joan Hickson was and will be for all time the perfect embodiment of the central character, it's her ability to convey so many different shades of mood and emotion in a single passage. Incidents deftly sketched on the page take on a full and entrancing range of colour and tone here. A great Christie given the five star treatment by a great theatrical talent. What more could you ask for?
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio Cassette
This, I think, is the finest in Radio 4's distinguished series of Agatha Christie dramatisations. The novel dramatised is one of Agatha Christie's best, set in a post war English village coping with rationing, poverty, and a new social order, and replete with many of Christie's most well drawn characters: Bunch Harmon the vicar's wife, warm and unspohisticatedly intelligent; the old-style lesbian couple of Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd; the self-dramatising refugee Mitzi, who feels demeaned by her position as domestic help; the young frivolous postwar generation represented here by Patrick and Julia Simmons; the destitute, loyal, scatty and genteel Dora Bunner; the emotionally scarred war widow turned land girl Phillipa Haymes... All these and more are caught up in a mysterious murder at Letitia Blacklock's home that bizarrely enough is announced in the classified ads *before* it happens...
The worst fault of this dramatisation is that, presumably because of a lack of time, the characters of the Swettenhams, and with them an entire set of subplots, have been excised. Most Agatha Christie novels are simple enough to withstand a heavy editing, but A Murder Is Announced contains so many enjoyable subtleties that it could well have done with four cassettes to itself rather than a mere two... But despite the necessary loss of detail this remains an excellent play; full of fun, suspense and intrigue with memorable characters well acted by the cast.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio Cassette
You'll never meet a murderer prepared to devise a killing as elaborate and risky as occurs here. Indeed, Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime, who admitted that she had never knowingly met a murderer, creates a dazzlingly daring one in this brilliant little book. Bear in mind that Mrs Christie's aim is to create an old-fashioned murder mystery, intent in baffling and misdirecting the reader who is trying to guess the solution. Don't look for any but a game-playing analysis of a murderer's mind. In addition she adds plenty of charm, she depicts a cozy village community, she displays a shrewd understanding of elderly folk, and she gives Miss Marple free rein to collect gossip in tea shops, kitchens and vicarage drawing rooms and to discern before anyone else that the murderer is .....
Dating from 1950, this is one of Agatha Christie's very best books from her later years. Of all her books, I rank it amongst the top ten. Those who like a good reader to present it should acquire the reading by Rosemary Leach, whose timing, articulation and slightly nasal voice adds additional charm to the story telling.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great unabridged recording, & easy to turn into a proper audiobook...
An unabridged recording of Joan Hickson reading an Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel has to be one of life's great delights. Read more
Published 5 months ago by R. Leslie
An excellent Miss Marple
This book is the best Miss Marple book I have read. The twist is very good and keeps you guessing until the very end. Read more
Published 23 months ago by sweetsoph16
Recommended
This was the first time I heard June Whitfield's assumption of the character of Christie's Miss Marple. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2010 by Iain C. Davidson
Another to add to mother in law's collection!
Always good value, bought for mother in law to add to her collection. Arrived very quickly, excellent service.
Published on 8 Nov 2009 by E. Coleman
Too many suspects perhaps
Another excellent book in the Marple Canon, this one adds to the mystery throughout, throwing out a variety of clues hither and thither, some of which I spotted, and others not. Read more
Published on 18 Jun 2009 by J. R. Johnson-Rollings
Who Done It?
This book is a great example of a Who Done It book. I guessed very early in the book who it was and in the end, with some great talent, Agatha Christie totally twisted the end. Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2008 by Anh Dao P. Tollefsen
Brilliant Book
This is a brilliant book and even though I guessed who did it very early on in the book, I still really enjoyed it and I still didn't guess the motive for murder and the motive is... Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2007 by I AM ME
A great mystery, one of the best ones ever written!
When a personal item in the Chipping Cleghorne Gazette invites people to a murder at the home of Miss Blacklock, they show up to be part of the excitement. Read more
Published on 23 Jan 2006 by Kurt A. Johnson
One of the Best.
Agatha Christie wrote "A Murder is Announced" in the 1940's but it is still one of the best murder mysteries ever written. It has charm, wit, sophistication and intelligence. Read more
Published on 23 Jun 2003 by A J Taylor
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