A Murder Is Announced is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in June 1950[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in the same month.
The murder is announced in advance in a local newspaper in a small village; Miss Marple is staying at a spa hotel there for treatment.
Remarks included: "The plot is as ingenious as ever, the writing more careful, the dialogue both wise and witty;";[4] and "Not quite one of her top notchers, but very smooth entertainment";[5] the murderer was "run to earth in a brilliantly conducted parlour game".
A "distantly related" storyline had previously been explored in Christie's Miss Marple short story "The Companion", where the characters also lived in Little Paddocks.
[8] A notice appears in Chipping Cleghorn's local newspaper: "A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, 29 October, at Little Paddocks, at 6.30 pm.
As the clock strikes 6.30, the lights go out, and a door swings open, revealing a man with a blinding torch who demands the guests "Stick 'em up!"
Then Craddock meets Miss Jane Marple at lunch with his boss and Sir Henry Clithering, at the hotel where Scherz worked.
Dr Blacklock died shortly before the Second World War, and Letitia gave up her job with Goedler to take her sister to Switzerland for surgery.
Bunny suspects Patrick Simmons; he, his sister Julia, and the young widow Phillipa Haymes are all staying at Little Paddocks as guests.
When Miss Blacklock hears Dora Bunner's voice telling her to stop, she releases Mitzi, breaks down, and is arrested by Sergeant Fletcher.
Aware that Letitia was in line to inherit a fortune, Charlotte posed as her deceased sister and returned to England a year earlier, in a village where few people knew her.
She avoided people who knew Letitia well, like Belle Goedler, and covered her throat with strings of pearls to hide the scars from her surgery.
She oiled the door and frayed a lamp cord, which she later shorted by pouring water on it when everyone was distracted by the clock chiming, so the room would be suddenly dark.
A "distantly related" storyline had previously been explored in Christie's Miss Marple short story "The Companion", where the characters also lived in a house called Little Paddocks.
The plot is as ingenious as ever, the writing more careful, the dialogue both wise and witty; while suspense is engendered from the very start, and maintained skilfully until the final revelation: it will be a clever reader indeed who anticipates this, and though Miss Christie is as usual scrupulously fair in scattering her clues, close attention to the text is necessary if a correct solution of the mystery is to be arrived at before the astute Miss Marple unmasks the culprit."
The review concluded, "Miss Christie has several surprises up her sleeve besides the main one, and (this much may be said without spoiling the reader's pleasure) she once again breaks new ground by creating a weak and kindly murderer who is yet responsible for the deaths of three people: that such a character should, in the last analysis, seem credible, is a tribute to the author's psychological acumen and originality of concept.
"[4] Maurice Richardson, in the 4 June 1950 issue of The Observer, said, "For her fiftieth book she has chosen a snug, residential village setting with her favourite detective, silver-haired, needle-sharp spinster, Miss Marple, making a delayed appearance.
Norman Shrapnel in The Guardian's issue of 9 June 1950 noted that this was Christie's 50th book and said that the murderer was "run to earth in a brilliantly conducted parlour game".
[6] An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of 30 September 1950 opined that "A Murder is Announced displays all the adroit and well-bred legerdemain one has come to expect from Agatha Christie...
article of Entertainment Weekly Issue #1343–44 (26 December 2014 – 3 January 2015), the writers picked A Murder Is Announced as an "EW favorite" on the list of the "Nine Great Christie Novels".
[15] It had been planned for this serialisation to take place closer to the eventual book publication in June 1950 but it was pulled forward by Christie's literary agent Edmund Cork in an effort to boost interest at the ailing box office for the play Murder at the Vicarage.
The NBC anthology series Goodyear Playhouse broadcast an adaptation by William Templeton on 30 December 1956, with Gracie Fields as Miss Marple, Roger Moore as Patrick Simmons and Jessica Tandy as Letitia Blacklock.
The play first toured Australia in 2013[19] with Judi Farr as Miss Marple, Robert Grubb as Inspector Craddock and Libby Munro as Phillipa Haymes, directed by Darren Yap.
[citation needed] Only a few changes were made: Mitzi was renamed Hannah and is said to possibly be Swiss (in the book, her nationality is unknown) and in the novel the vicarage cat was male and called Tiglath Pileser.
[20] In 2005, it was part of the first season of the ITV series Agatha Christie's Marple which featured Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, Zoë Wanamaker as Letitia Blacklock, Keeley Hawes as Phillipa Haymes, Elaine Paige as Dora Bunner, Frances Barber as Hinchcliffe, Cherie Lunghi as Sadie Swettenham, Catherine Tate as Mitzi and Alexander Armstrong as Inspector Craddock.
[citation needed] The novel was adapted as a 2015 episode of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie.
TV Asahi adapted the novel in 2019 starring Ikki Sawamura and Mao Daichi,[21] with the title Drama Special: Agatha Christie's A Murder Is Announced (Japanese: ドラマスペシャル アガサ・クリスティ 予告殺人).