A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple, #5)

A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple #5)

3.89 of 5 stars 3.89  ·  rating details  ·  13,495 ratings  ·  416 reviews
The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.'

A childish practical joke? Or a hoax intended to scare poor Letitia Blacklock?

Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begin...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published September 30th 2006 by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers (first published 1950)
more details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
And Then There Were None by Agatha ChristieMurder on the Orient Express by Agatha ChristieThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha ChristieDeath on the Nile by Agatha ChristieThe ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
Best Agatha Christie Book
8th out of 70 books — 359 voters
Charlotte's Web by E.B. WhiteThe Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. TolkienLord of the Flies by William GoldingThe Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. LewisThe Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Best Books of the Decade: 1950's
50th out of 413 books — 418 voters


More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
filter  |  sort: default (?)  |  rating details
Madeline
By this point, I have given up trying to play Guess The Culprit with Agatha Christie mysteries. It's just not possible. She's like a magician who tells an audience that she's going to make a coin disappear and reappear. The coin disappears, and she tells you to watch her right hand. You, who have seen magic shows before, think "Aha! Misdirection! I'll watch her left hand, and then I'll see how the trick is done." So you're watching her left hand, and everyone else is watching her right hand, and...more
Moira Russell
This totally has the best back jacket copy ever:

Then, as the clock chimed 6:30, the room went dark.

A gun exploded!

A body fell!

A woman screamed!

When the lights went on, a man was found lying on the floor. He was wrapped in a black cloak. He wore a black mask and he lay in a pool of blood -- dead.


(Just in case you weren't quite sure. -- DEAD.)

There had been thirteen people in the room -- thirteen witnesses who might have identified the killer.

OH BOY. These are like little deadlies.
Sarita
This was a free book, and I've never read Agatha Christie before (actually, I take that back; I think I read one in middle school or something). This was a good book to read on vacation and I appreciated the characterization. The most memorable part of this book for me was Christie's use of the word "pussies" to describe older women. Allow me to quote:
Quote #1: "Nice old Pussies and retired Colonels. Yes, if they noticed that advertisement they'd all come sniffing round at 6:30 to see what was...more
Chris
It's dark and gloomy this weekend and along with reading Agatha Christie, I've pulled out my knitting. Oh no, am I turning into Miss Marple?!
Beth666ann
I listened to the audiobook read by Rosemary Leach (she played the mother in Room with a View) and couldn't have enjoyed this more. Lots of dry wit in this one and an absolutely charming Boston marriage (can you say that if it's in England?) between Misses Mergatroid and Hinchcliff. Finally, this one has a hint of melancholy, since Miss Marple herself is now quite old and probably not going to live much longer. Anyway, the solution to enjoying Miss Marple books (for me) may be to find a great au...more
Andrea Ika
Review: A Murder is announced by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie


File Size: 440 KB
Print Length: 323 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN:B0042L24U2
Publisher: Harper; Masterpiece ed edition (October 14, 2010) , first published 1950
Format : kindle edition
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
Language: English
ASIN: B004APA52O
Genre : Mystery
Reading level : adult
Rating : 4 stars
Book blurb
Agatha Christie’s most ingenious murder mystery, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation...more
Faa
One of the attraction in reading Agatha's books is to guest who the culprit were. She was so good in deceiving readers and most of the times, readers missed the blindspot. So am I, each and everytime I read her book. She lined out firms alibis, strong characters, she even helped us divide the bad and good characters so as to make us easier to guess who was the bad guy; and to plan seeds of suspicion in few selected characters; who surprisingly would not even make it to the final list of suspects...more
Clarissa Draper
Date: June 1950
Detectives: Miss Jane Marple, Inspector Dermot Craddock

Characters:
Miss Jane Marple
Inspector Dermot Craddock
Letitia Blacklock, lady of the house, in her early/mid 60s
Dora Bunner, her elderly fluttery childhood friend, usually known by her nickname, "Bunny"
Patrick and Julia Simmons, Miss Blacklock's spoiled and foolish young cousins (who call her Aunt)
Mitzi, Miss Blacklock's foreign housekeeper and cook, a young refugee
Phillipa Haymes, a young widowed paying guest/gardener wit...more
Mónica Silva
Opinião no blog http://howtoliveathousandlives.blogsp...

Este é o meu cenário favorito para os policiais de Agatha Christie: uma pequena aldeia, em que todos se conhecem mas em que segredos do passado escondem-se por trás de uma fachada de calma e passividade. Aliado a este ambiente surge uma das minhas personagens favoritas do universo de Christie: Miss Marple.

Com um conjunto bem definido de suspeitos, esta velhinha adorável terá que desvendar quem tornou o homicídio num jogo macabro. A perspic...more
Mikael Kuoppala
Once again Agathe Christie's clever and strong storytelling, combined with social criticism and description have produced an entertaining mystery. While not Christie at her best, "A Murder Is Announced" is a worthwhile read.

Written in 1940, the story isn't as clever as many other mysteries Christie produced in her time, and having Miss Marple as the investigator always stretches the boundaries of credibility.

We get a newspaper announcing a murder that's going to happen later that very same day....more
Monique
Decided to throw it back with an old school English mystery by the Queen herself, Dame Agatha Christie..the premise as always simple yet oh so complex as all her works are and she has the coolest way of setting up a story and characters so vividly that by the time the murder happens you already know the suspects and have your own suspicions immediately..Of course you are always wrong because no one throws in a red herring quite like her she is so smart and calculating--the same scene can be repl...more
Patricia
A Murder is Announced is a novel from Agatha Christie's Miss Marple Mysteries.

It's about a murder being announced in the paper to take place at Letitia Blacklock's home.

The plot and title were both inviting, because nothing's as thrilling as an announced murder. I just didn't like how there were a lot of characters being introduced in the beginning, which like the other Christie book I have read before, got me bored and gave me a hard time remembering everyone. The climactic aspect kept fluctuat...more
Sarah D
Remember that rushing feeling in the good old days when you'd pick up the receiver of your kitchen phone and dangle it so that all the knots in the cord would come undone?

I am an avid reader of Agatha Christie. I mean, you'd think after reading over half of her works, I'd be able to tell who the culprit is and I did (by the third guess, but still)
However, the best thing about Agatha Christie, it's not just about finding out who the culprit is! It's about unraveling her wonderful plot of twists...more
Kasia
This was my first Miss Marple mystery but by no means my first Christie book. I have enjoyed the different way in which the sharp mind worked over Hercule Poirot's genius but truth be told, Miss Marple as good as she was didn't appear in the book too often. This was also the time I figured out who the murderer was, more likely because I have read a lot of Agatha and knew her to be a trickster when it came to fooling the reader but also partially due to clues given out fairly this time. The final...more
Timothy
A Murder Is Announced
Agatha Christie
288pages
ISBN 1579126294

A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie is a mystery book about a mysterious attempt to murder a woman named Letitia Blacklock. The title refers to an advertisement posted in a small village about a murder being announced at 6:30 pm. At first, no one believes the advertisement, but at 6:30 pm, the lights of Letitia Blacklock's house goes dark and two shots are heard. After the lights go back on, Letitia Blacklock's ear is cut by one of...more
Sarah
Please don’t make me turn in my bibliophile credentials at the door, but this is actually the first Agatha Christie novel I’ve ever read. We own several, but it’s always been a case of “I can read those anytime.” However, my husband has been pressing me to read some things more on his recommendation and since he enjoys these novels a great deal, I supposed this was a good a place as any to start.

The residents of the small village of Chipping Cleghorn are surprised to see an odd advertisment in t...more
Jack Cheng
Here's another recommendation from Agatha's grandson and it's a Marple mystery. I was never much of a Marple fan and this did not convert me, but the distance I felt made it an interesting read.

What I hadn't thought about when I read Christie voraciously as a teenager is how the setting is as important as a Carl Hiassen novel. Here we have the English countryside a few years after the war. Foreigners are working in the UK, but are still viewed with suspicion. Secrets are kept because rural peopl...more
Laurel
Excellent--truly classic Christie. This is one of the ones I've read repeatedly but enjoy returning to, as it's fun to know the solution and go back to see how Christie has seeded clues along the way. Miss Marple is at her best--the "fluffy" elderly lady underestimated by the police. I do think it would have been better not to have part of the solution arrive via coincidence; Miss M sees the bit with the faulty wiring occur rather improbably. However, as it would be out of character for her to k...more
Emily Weisgerber
I wouldn't normally comment on any old Agatha Christie book, but this one stood out to me as being a more worthy classic than "And Then There Were None."
As a long time fan of the movie "Clue," I had a moment of deja vu when the first murder takes place. I wouldn't be the least surprised if the screenwriters for "Clue" had loved this particular scene, and adapted it slightly for their movie. I think this goes to show you just how dramatic and memorable the scene is, and indeed, it feels like one...more
Shounak Reza
This review was originally published in my blog: http://shounaksbookreviews.blogspot.com/



Believe it or not, this is the first Agatha Christie that I have read- and I loved it so much, SO MUCH, that I will be reading more Agatha Christie in future and I guess she will become one of my favorite authors. ''A Murder Is Announced'' is a wonderful detective novel, a great mystery filled with lots of suspense, and yes, lots of humor.

In the peaceful village Chipping Cleghorn, villagers are startled to s...more
Liang
This is my second Christie novel and my first Miss Marple mystery, and I have to say it was awesome! I can now see why Chritie's mysteries are so popular. I was never a big into mysteries, but now I think I'll have to reconsider. I read this book in a day because I couldn't put it down.

First of all, the characters are very real. Chrisie bring to life a community in the English countryside and the reader can easily see people they know in these characters. The characters all have unique personali...more
Jenni
I think this is a Miss Marple that slipped through the cracks when I was reading basically every Agatha Christie ever written (missing one is not that hard to do, considering that every library has different ones and often the British and American titles differ). I certainly thought that I must have read this one, but I have no memory of it.

VERY proud to have sort of partially solved this one. I'm getting to where I can figure out some plot twists, which is quite satisfactory. I didn't fall for...more
Virginia
Jul 04, 2011 Virginia rated it 3 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Cozy mystery lovers
Just as I've changed over the years, my tastes have changed as well. When my children were little, I used to while away nap time reading and Agatha was one of my first choices. I even gave the librarian a bad time because they didn't carry more of her books.

Agatha's books aren't usually my first choice now, I read this one because it was the July book choice for my local Sisters in Crime group. The beginning reminded me of old black and white movies where everyone was all a flutter because of t...more
Yngvild
There is a touch of the theatre of the absurd in A Murder is Announced. I can often hear Agatha Christie laughing as she writes, but this story is almost like a drawing room farce with characters popping in and out of rooms. I enjoyed it immensely.

There are a couple of interesting female-female pairs in A Murder is Announced, presumably in part because this 1950 publication was written at a time when two generations of males had been decimated by war. There are several references to the various...more
Shinn
As always, Agatha Christie manages to make the murder mystery new and interesting. The plot certainly is, as well as the denouement and the perp (guessed it!).

The best thing about Ms. Christie's books are the murders themselves - they're practically characters in their own right. Good thing, because the humans aren't much to read about. At least in the Marple mysteries, they always follow cookie-cutter guidelines: there's always a vicar or parson of some sort, a crotchety old lady, a whimsy old...more
Melon Manis
An announcement of a murder to be!
It sounded so interesting, not only to me, but also to the Chipping Cleghorn villagers.
They all thought it must be a very fun detective game and moreover, they are all invited - so the announcement said.

But the excitement of waiting something interesting to happen replaced by a terror in the village.
But there's also a good newa: Miss Marple happens to be there too and she's ready to help the police investigate.
Cata
Esta foi a minha estreia com a autora. Já vi muitos dos filmes de Poirot (embora não tivesse visto de Miss Marple), porém nunca tinha lido nenhum dos seus livros. Nem sabia o que estava a perder!

A história é intrincada e imprevisível e todos (todos!!) os meus palpites para a identidade do criminoso estavam errados. Quando a sua identidade foi revelada o meu queixo caiu... Como era possível que fosse essa personagem por detrás de tudo? Porquê? Não fazia qualquer sentido!

E depois veio o momento al...more
Kurt
In what I am learning must be typical Agatha Christie fashion, the solution to this mystery is ludicrous, but this time I enjoyed the ride to get there. Christie is still mind-bogglingly classist and xenophobic as she paints rural villagers and foreigners as silly and ignorant, but at least she plays that for comedy this time instead of making it an assumption in a serious piece. There are some laugh out loud moments when poor daffy Dora speaks, and Christie maintains a generally humorous tone t...more
Cheryl
Every morning Johnnie Butt delivered the papers in the village of Chipping Cleghorn on his bicycle. Whistling through his teeth while stuffing the morning paper through the letter box, this Friday edition of the Gazette would surprise, and yes, shock locals, and before the ink wore off their fingers, mark some for death!

For the Personal column, the first place villagers looked, was peppered with the usual articles for sale or wanted, the frantic search for domestic help after the War, and listin...more
Agatha West
Just finished A Murder is announced for the second time. I first read it about 5 years ago. Nobody is better than Mrs. Christie at being able to get people in one place, and giving them all a possible motive for murder. This Christie mystery is no exception. Someone, unknown to those who live at Little Paddocks, places an ad in the paper stating that a murder will occur that evening at Paddocks. Locals think its nothing more than a murder mystery game and show up. Needless to say, there is a mur...more
« previous 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 99 100 next »
topics  posts  views  last activity   
Agatha Christie L...: December 2014 - A Murder is Announced 1 10 Dec 28, 2012 01:43pm  
A Murder is Announced (Paperback)
A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple, #5)
Un delitto avrà luogo (Paperback)
A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple #5)
A Murder Is Announced (Iklan Pembunuhan)

123715
Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England, U.K., as the youngest of three. The Millers had two other children: Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, who was eleven years Agatha's senior, and Louis Montant Miller (1880...more
More about Agatha Christie...
And Then There Were None Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10) The Mysterious Affair At Styles (Hercule Poirot #1) Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple, #1) Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot #17)

Share This Book

Your website
“It's what's in *yourself* that makes you happy or unhappy.” 14 people liked it
“One is alone when the last one who remembers is gone.” 12 people liked it
More quotes…