One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone.
A Murder is Announced
by Agatha Christie
Genre: Murder Mystery
About: An advert appears in the local newspaper announcing when a murder shall occur - date, time and place given. It causes a stir among the villagers, most taking it as a joke, but others see a darker edge to the announcement and at the mind that thought it up. When a murder does in fact happened, exactly as announced, the police step in. What at first points to a joke, turns to a robbery, and then to something far more menacing...
Thoughts
I don't really enjoy these Miss Marple's where she isn't present from the word murder. This one floods us with a lot of characters at the start and because they all have the same conversation, speculating in the same manner, I really struggled to differentiate them. Even hours into the audiobook there were villagers I couldn't say one defining feature about.
However I did like some of the characters and the mystery had me interested, I just didn't feel pinned into the story as I think I would have if we'd had Miss Marple there from the very beginning.
So although the mystery aspect was good - albeit with a few squint at the improbable moments - the village talk had me bored a lot of the time. I didn't like how repetitive it was, how little it moved the plot forward, how dragged out everything felt. There were of course some great moments; whenever a character was re-enacting the incident, those scenes were really visual and added to this unsettling atmosphere of having a murder hidden in the quiet village.
I can't say it isn't a good Miss Marple because it does do everything you expect: there are twists, lies, deaths, and all cloaked in cosy village life, with a sweet old lady to solve everything by the end. Yet it felt a little too rambling to me with too few stand out characters.
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