Murder Is Announced

Murder Is Announced (1950) Agatha Christie (Miss Marple)

A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6: 30 p.m. Friends please accept this, the only intimation.

This is post WWII story, and there are so many bits regarding that I love.

“You know the Fuel Office won’t even let us have the little bit that’s due to us each week— not unless we can say definitely that we haven’t got any other means of cooking.”

“I suppose there was once heaps of coke and coal for everybody?” said Julia with the interest of one hearing about an unknown country.

“Yes, and cheap, too.” “And anyone could go and buy as much as they wanted, without filling in anything, and there wasn’t any shortage? There was lots of it there?”

“All kinds and qualities— and not all stones and slates like what we get nowadays.”

“It must have been a wonderful world,” said Julia, with awe in her voice.

An’ that sort of thing wouldn’t ’ave ’appened afore the war.

The more things change….

“I suppose you’ve been talking to Phillipa Haymes?”

“I wanted her account as an eyewitness.”

“You couldn’t have waited until one o’clock, I suppose? After all, it would be fairer to question her in her time, rather than in mine.

Anybody who took the trouble could have a suitable identity card— and partly because of that, the subtler links that had held together English social rural life had fallen apart. In a town nobody expected to know his neighbour.

Also: queer rep!

Nobody offered Miss Hinchcliffe sympathy or mentioned Miss Murgatroyd’s death. The ravaged face of the tall vigorous woman told its own tale, and would have made any expression of sympathy an impertinence.

Rating: 8.5/10

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