This was a very enjoyable read. I liked that it was a novel dominated by collecting and grinding through data to solve who did it and why. Instead, it was a novel lit up by the diverse set of women who lived in the village and were associated with the crime.

At first, I was a little put off by how many of the women declared themselves or were declared by their friends to be stupid. Then I realised that with one charming exception, the 'Oh, I'm so stupid about such things' stance was camouflage that hid both secrets and intellects.

I liked that almost all of the characters were likeable to a degree. There was no obvious evil witch in their midst wreaking havoc just ordinary and sometimes admirable women making the best of things, Except for whoever it was who was killing people and even they seemed to be taking no joy in their actions.

This a Miss Marple novel (although she would protest, modestly, that she merely shared a few thoughts and that it was that bright young policeman who solved the crime) and her way of looking at who people really are, her lack of trust in who people present themselves as being and her resigned acceptance that even nice people may find a good reason to do bad things, set the tone for the story. One consequence of this is that the novel, published in 1950, gives some fascinating details of village life after World War II. How migration had changed the character of the village by adding people who had not grown up there or been introduced by people whom one knew and trusted but who had rather presented themselves and their story on arrival and built their lives anew. How the continuation of rationing had drawn all of the women in the village into an illegal but taken-for-granted barter system that combined intimacy with complicity. How much loss the war had imposed on families, how much dislocation it had caused, and how much change it had driven, particularly in the lives of women. Taken together, these things painted a picture of village life in transition with everyone having to adjust to new and unasked-for realities and, for the most part, supporting one another in muddling through.

For me, this credible, fallible, very human context made the murders into violations that seemed much more unforgivable than the deaths in the Poirot books where it often seems that bad people kill other bad people in clever ways for trivial reasons. In this book, the people do not deserve to die and the killings destroy the murderer's peace of mind as well as spreading grief throughout the village.

I've always preferred Miss Marple to Poirot, She's scarier than he is but more human. She sees the world clearly and expects very little of it but never descends into bitterness. She hopes that people will do the right thing but has is never surprised when they do the wrong thing or the easy thing instead.

For me, the biggest difference between Marple and Poirot is that, to Marple, murder is not a game. It's not a puzzle to be solved with the little grey cells. It's a tragedy in progress, an eruption of evil that must be contained and stopped. The whole novel is coloured by this way of seeing the world and is the richer for it.

The plot was clever, if a little improbable. The explanations all worked although I paid them little attention in the end. I'll remember the deaths and the grief long after I've forgotten the mechanics of the plot. ( )

I have always liked Agatha Christie but have never read any of her Miss Marple stories. I will be changing that now. This was a great book. ( )

This is set just after WWII, when rationing is still in place, village life is changing - where people no longer know who their neighbours are - and where there is still a mistrust in "foreigners" such as the poor Mitzi, who has (or has not) been through so much in Germany during the war.

It starts out with an entry in the local newspaper, announcing a murder at 6:30 that evening at Little Paddocks. Naturally, people are curious, so there's plenty of witnesses that evening as the lights go out, shots are fired and a young man is found dead in the hall moments later. Of course, Bunch knows Miss Marple, and combined with Inspector Craddock who knows her reputation, she is called down to help out. People are more likely to say things to the dotty old woman knitting in the corner than the police after all.....

There's a veritable cast here, some of whom have very similar names, and the matter of the inheritance of millions of pounds, people pretending to be other people, and it all boils down to "do you really know your neighbour?".

As usual, a tight little story, where most of the clues are there if you are paying attention (though most people dont), an like the TV adaptations, a great way to spend an afternoon

Murder Foretold
Review of the William Morrow Paperbacks edition (2011) of the Collins Crime Club (UK) & Dodd, Mead & Company (US) hardcover (June 1950) originals.

“Just look, Letty.” Miss Blacklock looked. Her eyebrows went up. She threw a quick scrutinizing glance round the table. Then she read the advertisement out loud. “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.”

An advertisement in the Chipping Cleghorn Gazette tells the entire local village that a murder will take place at the home of Charlotte (Lettie) Blacklock. Curious neighbours just happen to drop by at the appointed place and time and lo and behold a death does take place, but it is the assailant who falls dead at their feet after an apparent murder attempt on the host. The police are baffled of course, and Miss Marple is called in to unravel the situation. But then yet another death occurs.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/A_Murder_is_Announced_First_Editi...
The front cover of the original 1950 Collins Crime Club (UK) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

This was yet another delightful outing for Christie's amateur senior sleuth. The amount of coincidences, changed identities and obscure motives were perhaps stretched to the edge of believability, but it was as entertaining and diverting as the best of Marple and Christie. I would even say it is my favourite to date (I am reading them in order of publication).

Confusion for Completists
A Murder is Announced is the 4th Miss Marple novel. Some lists, including the Goodreads Miss Marple Listopia, count it as Miss Marple #5 as the short story collection [book:The Thirteen Problems|31309] (1932) is counted as #1 only because some of those stories appeared in 1927.

Trivia and Links
A Murder is Announced was adapted twice for English language television. Both of those are reasonably faithful to the original plot. I did not find any free trailers or postings of either of them, but they are both available on the Britbox streaming service here in Canada.

The first adaptation was as part of the BBC's Miss Marple (1984-1992) series as Season 1 Episodes 6, 7 & 8 in 1985, which starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.

The second adaptation was as part of ITV's Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004-2013) reboot series as Season 1 Episode 4 in 2005 which starred Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple.

There was a French language adaptation for the Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie [French: The Little Murders of Agatha Christie] (2009 - ongoing) series. The episode based on A Murder is Announced was Season 2 Episode 11 Murder Party (2015). This series does not feature a Miss Marple character and instead has a police detective and a reporter as the leads. The plots are transplanted to France and are considerably changed from the originals.

There was a Korean language TV adaptation for the Ms. Ma, Nemesis (2018) limited series. There were 32 episodes to this series which adapted several Miss Marple stories, including A Murder is Announced, into a modern day plot of an prison escapee who seeks to clear her own name of her daughter’s murder and solves that and other crimes in the process. The lead role was played by Yunjin Kim, best known in English language television from the TV series Lost (2004-2010). ( )

This is an amusing murder mystery novel, and I managed to figure out about half of the (original) crime before the big reveal. There were, of course, things that I didn't get quite right, but that's what I expect from a Christie novel. The cast of characters in this one was enjoyable to read about, and the whole set-up was more believable than I'm used to from mystery novels. I really enjoyed this one. ( )