From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple, #4)

Agatha Christie

Start date: October 1, 2025

Finish date: October 31, 2025

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: The next book in our Christie challenge.
[close] The next book in our Christie challenge.

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 17 posts · 20 views

last updated Sep 25, 2025 01:00PM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
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last updated Sep 16, 2025 12:58PM

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What Members Thought

Jan 21, 2017 Susan in NC rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: want-to-reread, reread, 25detectiveschallenge, my-library, favorites, audiobook

9/26/25: reread for Reading the Detectives group Christie challenge, this is our October book. I love this, Miss Marple’s third outing; she’s center stage to the action for most of the book, and I loved her relationship with Bunch, the rather flaky but actually quite sharp vicar’s wife she’s visiting. Their conversations are delightful, revealing not just their fondness for each other, but Bunch’s appreciation for “Aunt Jane’s muddled way of thinking” as she calls it at the beginning of the fina 9/26/25: reread for Reading the Detectives group Christie challenge, this is our October book. I love this, Miss Marple’s third outing; she’s center stage to the action for most of the book, and I loved her relationship with Bunch, the rather flaky but actually quite sharp vicar’s wife she’s visiting. Their conversations are delightful, revealing not just their fondness for each other, but Bunch’s appreciation for “Aunt Jane’s muddled way of thinking” as she calls it at the beginning of the final chapter where all is revealed.

I also feel Christie reveals more of Miss Marple’s valuable insights gained through a long life observing her fellow humans-and generally not believing a word they say! As Miss M. explains to the inspector on the case, in this post-war period (1950), so much has changed and become unsettled, one really can’t know where people are from, or the truth of their background. One can only go by what one is told - and that may be a tissue of lies! A huge fortune to be inherited hangs in the balance, and if one old lady dies before another, two young twin siblings, not seen since before the war, stand to inherit-and they’d be about the same age of several of the suspects!

3/24/24: Always a treat to reread Christie. I listened to the audible as well, and the female narrator did a pretty good job, except for Bunch Harmon, the vicar’s wife. For some reason she sounded like Glenda the Good Witch from Wizard of Oz!

I own the DVD set of the Joan Hickson Miss Marple tv series - she was the best Marple to me - and I’ve always felt they are pretty close to the books, but of course, they can’t include every thought and bit of plot and dialogue. So I enjoy rereading the books once in awhile, too.

2017: Loving my Agatha Christie rereads! I love Poirot but there's something about the way Miss Marple masks her sharp, tough mind, suspects everybody of the absolute worst, and always sees through the murderer's subterfuges. I love how suspects always remind her of someone from her past and often reveal motives - delightful!

This case literally opens with a bang as a murder is literally announced in the local newspaper of the village of Chipping Cleghorn; neighbors show up thinking it's a game or stunt but arrive just in time for the lights to go out as shots ring out...great stuff! Even though I've read this mystery a few times and enjoyed watching the inimitable Joan Hickson as Miss Marple in the BBC version, I still find the ending gripping as Miss Marple inexorably closes the noose around the neck of the murderer - very exciting!

As usual Christie provides us with an interesting cast of characters, not just villagers but police as well - and I love Bunch, daughter of Miss Marple's old vicar who also provides an entree for our dear old gal to start snooping around the village. I love how few people are who they seem, as Miss Marple points out - the war changed everything drastically, and one can no longer be sure that the new wife of the local squire is who she says she is, or the old Anglo Indian colonel is really a pukka sahib, or long-lost cousins aren't in fact predatory gold diggers - no spoilers, just a few of the red herrings Miss Marple and the police have to sort through as tensions rise along with the body count. The effects of WWII are shown to great effect in the villagers' lives of much reduced circumstances, the need to sell off possessions, reduce staff, let gardens and houses fall into benign neglect and barter among neighbors for essentials like butter, honey, eggs and vegetables. A very satisfying mystery on many levels. ...more

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Dec 02, 2017 Jan C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: england, mystery, 2017, rtd-2017-missmarple-challenge

Hadn't realized I had forgotten to add this book.

This is one of my favorites.

There is an announcement in the paper that "there will be a murder tonight!" Miss Blacklock finds she has to prepare for guests to drop in. She has a friend and three youngsters (20-somethings) living with her. The guests include a retired colonel and his wife, the vicar's wife (he had to write a sermon), a widow and her son (who has a case on one of the 20-somethings), two women who have a pig farm. She is really pack ...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Nancy Oakes added it

Shelves: crime-fiction-uk, crime-fiction, classic-mystery-fiction

I think I'm going to reread this one because it's been a while. ...more

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Jun 05, 2009 Bronwyn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: author-a-i, by-women, series, novels, mystery-detective-suspense, read-multiple-times, european, audiobook, title-j-r, 2009-reads

I like the whodunnit aspect of this, but it does get a bit bogged down in hidden identities and motives. And of course Miss Marple has the perfect hidden talent for the ending. Not bad, but not the best.

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 04, 2009 Laura Anne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: british-isles, mystery

2024 Series Re-read: This one is a delight; an excellent scheme, the clues there from the start, and Miss Marple even arrives in a timely manner to bestow the wisdom of St Mary Mead. Only the traumatized housekeeper as comic-relief hasn't aged well. ...more

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