They Do It With Mirrors

They Do It With Mirrors (1952) Agatha Christie

Another Miss Marple mystery–comfort reading for when I’m sick.

Miss Marple is asked by her friend Ruth to look into the circumstances of Ruth’s sister, Carrie Louise. Jane Marple and Ruth and Carrie Louise were school mates, and remained in touch through the years. Ruth feels there is something wrong with Carrie Louise’s situation, but can’t say precisely what, and so manages things so that Miss Marple is invited down to Stonygates, which Carrie Louise’s latest husband has turned into a reform home for delinquent boys.

When she arrives, Miss Marple feels something is off, but can’t figure out quite what it is, until a shooting and a murder.

Oddly, this is a Miss Marple story I don’t remember reading, although I had to have, because I know I read all of them as a child, and I knew who the murderer was.

As usual, much of the book felt timeless, and as usual, there are so many sharp comments on society and the world.

…when one lives in the same country there is no need to arrange meetings with old friends. One assumes that, sooner or later, one will see them without contrivance.

Except, of course, you don’t. That’s so very true of living where I do–if it weren’t for Facebook, I’d never know what was going on with my friends who live in the same town as me.

Then there was this:

Everyone’s life has a tempo. Ruth’s was presto wheras Miss Marple’s was content to be adagio.

That’s a lovely and perfect and succinct descriptor.

And then this:

“They all fuss about me so,” she said. “They rub it in that I’m an old woman.”
“And you don’t feel like one.”
“No, I don’t, Jane. In spite of all my aches and pains–and I’ve got plenty. Inside I go on feeling just like a chit like Gina. Perhaps everyone does. The glass shows them how old they are and they just don’t believe it.

Just so.
Rating: 7/10

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks

 
 

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