What a classic, escape-room-y set up! In the tiny fictional English village of Chipping Cleghorn, the local Gazette publishes a personal ad. "A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED... Friends are advised to accept this, their only intimation."
Date (doesn't matter), time is 6:30, location is "Little Paddocks" because Agatha Christie houses all have names!
A group of about 12 people end up gathering out of curiosity, thinking it might be a "murder game." At the appointed time, as the clock finishes chiming the half hour, the lights go out and the front door opens. A man's voice yells "Hands up!" as a dazzling flashlight plays around the room. Two shots ring out, chaos erupts, the man spins and a third shot is heard.
When the lights are restored, the owner of the house is bleeding copiously from her ear, while two bullet holes are visible in the wall behind her head. The robber is dead in the doorway.
Who would have wanted to murder Miss Letitiia Blacklock? Did the robber die by accident or suicide?
In order to remember this plot, a cast of characters is recommended.
The Suspects:
Living at Little Paddocks:
- Letitia Blacklock, lady of the house, in her 60s (also the main character)
- Dora Bunner, her elderly fluttery childhood friend, usually known by her nickname, "Bunny"
- Patrick and Julia Simmons, Miss Blacklock's spoiled and foolish young cousins (who call her "Aunt" due to the difference in ages)
- Mitzi, Miss Blacklock's foreign housekeeper and cook, a young refugee
- Phillipa Haymes, a young widowed paying guest/gardener with a young son at boarding school
Neighbors:
- Colonel Archie Easterbrook, blustery old colonel just returned from India
- Laura Easterbrook, his considerably younger, glamorous wife
- Mrs Swettenham, elderly lady who dotes on her son, Edmund
- Edmund Swettenham, cynical young writer
- Miss Hinchcliffe, physically fit, tough lady farmer
- Miss Amy Murgatroyd, Miss Hinchcliffe's sweet-dispositioned, giggly companion
- Belle Goedler, dying widow of Letitia's former wealthy employer
- Julian Harmon, the vicar
- Diana "Bunch" Harmon, the vicar's wife
- Tiglath Pileser, the vicarage cat
- Rudi Scherz, a young man of Swiss extraction, the receptionist at a local spa
- Myrna Harris, girlfriend of the latter, waitress at local spa
The Detectives:
- Miss Jane Marple
- Inspector Dermot Eric Craddock
- Chief Constable George Rydesdale, Craddock's superior
- Detective Sergeant Fletcher, assisting Craddock
- Constable Legg
(Cast of characters copy pasted from Wikipedia)
Published in 1950, the book has that timeless Christie quality. There are some references to "the War" probably, but was that WWI or WWII? There is Colonel Easterbrook, just returned from India--3 years AFTER partition? No mention of that horror having any effect. No, the colonel could have been posted at anytime, back at any time, Britain could still be the raj for all this book acknowledges the actual time period. This book could be set at any time from 1924-1976--basically the scope of Christie's career.
THIS IS HER 50TH NOVEL!
So, what happens?
Classic Christie format: We begin with vignettes of the various households, reading the newspaper. We get a sense of who the assembled parties will be--what we don't know is who will be a victim, and who will be the perpetrator. It's rather the fun of a book like this to try to spot the plot before the plot is actually set into motion.
The murder is announced via newspaper personals advertisement. Various characters intrigued. Letty Blacklock, the owner of Little Paddocks, is particularly surprised, but certain that the neighbors will turn up, she puts together a little party set up, and indeed, people arrive. At 6:30, the clock chimes, the lights go out, a door swings open, someone yells "Stick 'em up!" and a flashlight swings around the room. Two shots are fired, the flashlight is dropped, a third shot is fired, then all goes quiet. Very exciting!
When the lights are back on (somebody had to find the fuse box), the burglar is dead, and 2 bullet holes are in the wall behind Letty Blacklock's head! She is bleeding from the ear--she was the target, but why?
Bunny recognizes the "burglar" as a receptionist from the nearby hotel--a man named Rudi Scherz, who had approached Letty for money recently. She turned him down--was that the motive for the burglary? And how did he die? Did he accidentally fall on his gun?
Of course, it's much more complicated than that. There is a legacy--Letty had worked as secretary to a very successful financier, himself dead for quite some time. But his widow Belle. is still alive--but once she dies, the money comes to Letty.
Or, if Letty pre-deceases Belle, the money goes to "Pip and Emma" a pair of twins who are the niece and nephew of the financier. So there is motive to kill Letty?
Much is discovered--Patrick and Julia are pulling a scam--"Julia" is actually Emma, one of the missing twins who stands to inherit if Letty predeceases Belle. Philippa turns out to be "Pip"--the other twin.
Other people die--Bunny takes an aspirin from Letty's bottle, is found dead the next morning. Hinchcliffe and Murgatroyd (coded lesbians!) try to reenact the drama of the night, Murgatroyd realizes "She wasn't there" and is soon found strangled.
Miss Marple happens to be staying at the hotel where Rudi Scherz was working, and she. comes in and figures it all out. Letty is not the intended victim, she is the perpetrator!
Because Letty is NOT Letty, she is actually Letty's sister, Charlotte. Letty and Lottie went to Switzerland during the war, where Lottie had goiter surgery, and met Rudi Scherz there. After the war ended, "Letty" returned to England, saying that "Lottie" had died. The inheritance, you see.
But Rudi recognized her, and he had to be silenced. Letty set up the situation, exited the room and shot twice at where she had been standing, then killed Rudi with the third shot. She nicked her own ear and returned to her spot by the time the lights came back on.
In acting out the scene, Murgatroyd realized that Letty wasn't in the spot she was supposed to be, so Letty killed her.
Bunny--dear, dotty, Bunny--wasn't able to remember to always call her friend "Letty." A few times she slipped, calling her "Lottie," so Letty gave her one last wonderful birthday day, and killed her with a narcotic in the aspirin bottle.
Letty is finally caught in a trap set by Miss Marple and Inpsector Craddock, where they accuse Edmund of being Pip, and trying to kill Letty for the inheritance. (Here, Philippa reveals that she is Pip, so they have to quickly pivot to claiming Edmund did it to marry a rich wife.) Mitzi claims to know a secret, and Letty is caught trying to drown her in the kitchen. She breaks down when Miss Marple imitates Bunny's voice.
As someone who has binged on quite a few of Christie's works in the past few months, it is amazing how she managed to ring so many changes on this cozy format. The trick of this one is that the bulk of the book is spent tricking the reader into seeing Letty as the intended victim, when she is the perpetrator. At some point, you have to realize you have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
Christie has quite a number of variations on the cozy scheme. There is one where the first person narrator turns out to be unreliable--is the perpetrator. There is one where ALL of the suspects committed the crime, and they are all covering for each other. There is one where all the suspects end up dead--so who was the murderer? There is one where the murder to be solved happened a decade before--and Miss Marple has to even figure out what she is investigating.
Much of the novel is written as dialogue--characters are sketched briefly, with only a few characteristics to distinguish them from each other. They aren't exactly memorable, but you can usually tell them apart. There are 15 suspects, after all, in addition to the detectives, the victim, and a couple of witnesses. For a book of about 100 pages, that requires deftness!
Do you really care about any of them? I submit that you don't. There is pleasure in the unraveling of the puzzle, but it's not really wrenching to deal with all these deaths. They aren't real enough to be affecting.
But they are entertaining, and it's rather comforting to read these during the covid upheaval. There is order, and it can be restored after a major social disruption--murder and war can be overcome, so why not a pandemic?
