A review by jdcorley
A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie

emotional mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Christie takes the first third of the book - before Marple's arrival - to slowly go over and over each of the witnesses' statements, in a certainly intentional plodding, methodical and repetitive way. But we can already begin to see the differences in what different characters focused on and revealed. This is a slower Marple mystery, with a killer who is reacting to what's happening around them, and, so, we too must be highly alert to what's happening.  There's more than one motive that isn't a motive to commit these crimes this way, and more than one method that doesn't make sense for the motives we find.  Hanging over it all is the horrid cloud of the war - a shattered refugee, a war widow, a deserter, a gun jammed in the back of the drawer, pathetic trading of vegetables and foodstuffs among villagers still trying to keep a stiff upper lip despite having been through an apocalypse. Who wouldn't commit a few cold hearted, calculated murders to get out of it?
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