A Murder is Announced Book Review

Title: A Murder is Announced.

Author: Agatha Christie.

Genre: Fiction, Classic, Mystery, Historical Fiction.

Plot: Friday, October 29th, starts out as a perfectly normal Friday. People having breakfast, families talking and making plans for the day, newspapers being delivered  people going about their affairs, pretending to be minding their own when really sticking their noses into their neighbor's business. But when the Gazette is eagerly snatched up and read for it's local gossip potential, no one is prepared for the one little announcement in the personal column. Someone is to be murdered that very day at 6:30 at Little Paddocks. When word gets around to the residents of Little Paddocks, it is met with something like a confused silence. Miss Blacklock, the owner of Little Paddocks, wonders at this announcement and then demands to know if her visiting second cousin Patrick had anything to do with it. Patrick, a youthful often mischievous young man, denies having anything to do with the matter. His sister Julia is also in the dark. The question of who put the ad in the paper then gets suspended when Mitzi, the temperamental cook, comes bounding in to hand in her resignation, wanting nothing to do with murders.

By the time everything is smoothed out between Mitzi and the mysterious murder announcement, neighbors start arriving under some pretext or other. But when the game turns out to be a very serious affair, leaving one man dead, nobody knows quite what to think of the jolly little joke in the morning paper. But how was it all arranged? And who would want to kill sweet old Miss Blacklock anyway?

Likes/Dislikes: This is, chronologically, the fifth Miss Marple book, and it's amazing! So beautifully written, weaving in and out of the character's lives, painting the picture in such a way that you find yourself being slowly pulled in deeper and deeper until you can't get out - right up to the terrific twist at the end, knocking everything outta place and leaving you dazed, blinking at reality. I never saw that twist coming and it floored me when it hit. This is definitely going on my favorites' list!

Rating: PG-14 and up, mainly for reading level and content {it's a murder mystery but nothing graphic}.

Date Report Written: April 27th, 2013.