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A Murder Is Announced (The Christie Collection)
 
 

A Murder Is Announced (The Christie Collection) (Paperback)

by Agatha Christie (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd; Masterpiece Ed edition (3 Jan 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0006165281
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006165286
  • Product Dimensions: 17.7 x 10.9 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 345,704 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Synopsis

The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Miss Marple, are amazed by an advertisement in the local paper which reads "A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30pm. Unable to resist, a crowd begins to gather at the house at the appointed time.


About the Author

Agatha Christie is the best-selling author of all time. She has sold over 2 billion novels worldwide and has been translated into more languages than any other single writer.

Born on 15 September 1890 in Devon, England, her career spanned six decades in which time she published 80 novels and short story collections and 19 plays. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles published in 1920, was written as a result of a challenge from her sister. In it she would introduce to the world Hercule Poirot, one of the most famous fictional characters of all time. Poirot would appear in over 80 novels and short stories. Nine years later Agatha created Miss Marple - a spinster sleuth who would become so popular she would rival Poirot in the nation's affections.

Her writing won her many fans including the royal family. When Queen Mary was approaching her 80th birthday, the BBC asked how she would want them to celebrate it. She requested a new Christie play! Three Blind Mice was duly written for the radio; it would later be adapted into The Mousetrap and become the longest continuously running play in history.

Although best known for her detective fiction, Christie also wrote a number of books that give us insight into her world. Her autobiography, published the year after her death provides a full, and often humorous, account of her life and Come, Tell Me How You Live chronicles her travels as the wife of a world famous archaeologist, on digs in the Middle East.

Agatha Christie had a truly remarkable life; she was a very private lady though her love of travel and archaeology shines through in her work. Her most famous novel Murder on the Orient Express celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2009 and was inspired by her own travels on the train, when she too became stranded due to weather.

After a hugely successful career and a very happy life Agatha died peacefully on 12 January 1976. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An elaborate murder plan., 29 April 2005
By John Austin "austinjr@bigpond.net.au" (Kangaroo Ground, Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
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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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Humourous, Human And Satisfying, 10 Sep 2000
By A Customer
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.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best., 23 Jun 2003
By A J Taylor (Cambridge, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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. Christie starts the story by a number of villagers reading an advertisement carried in the village paper "The Chipping Cleghorn Gazette" which reads:

"A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30pm. Friends please accept this, the only intimation"

Intrigued, much of the village desends on the cottage in question at 6.30pm where the mystery continues...

If you enjoy this I can reccommend The ABC Murders, Murder on the Orient Express and A Body In the Library, all recently reprinted in stylish new covers.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 1 day ago by E. Coleman

4.0 out of 5 stars 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 4 months ago by Jimternet

5.0 out of 5 stars 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 20 months ago by Anh Dao P. Tollefsen

5.0 out of 5 stars 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

5.0 out of 5 stars 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

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