#ReadThis @AgathaChristie @HarperCollins @Morrow_PB #TheyDoItWithMirrors by #AgathaChristie #Fifth #5 #MissMarple #Mystery #ReadChristie2022
We have simple taste.
We like the best.
And so we read Agatha Christie.
We started when our schedule magically opened up during covid and everything in New York was unprecedently closed and we suddenly had time.
We continue because even when everything is open in New York, she is better.
Well into the Miss Marple Series now, we on occasion can guess what happens in the end and are rarely confident. This time we were quite confident we had figured it out yet we were entirely gobsmacked in the end which happens only when the author is the best.
This is high entertainment from start to finish and is embellished with characters of fun and whimsy.
"Dr. Maverick laughed cheerfully. 'We're all mad, dear lady,' he said as he ushered her in through the door. 'That's the secret of existence. We're all a little mad.'" (p. 53) How Alice-in-Wonderland-esque!
Outsiders, delinquents, Americans, oh my! So many suspects to choose from...but what person or people are really up to something? Sometimes silence speaks volumes and when Miss Marple is quiet you know she is thinking. Also in the wake of all the uproars about gun violence in America today, the character Gina references the mentally unstable on these pages published in 1952. (p.140).
What's true? What's an illusion? White-collar crime is nothing new! Quite a red herring here right down to the chocolates we'll say at the risk of giving it away.
Finally on page 18 it is fun to note Miss Marple was twittering back in 1952, further evidencing her timelessness and ability to thrive throughout the ages: she is no bot!
They Do It With Mirrors is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
Previously on Whom You Know, we have raved about Agatha:
ALL OF HERCULE POIROT:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
https://www.whomyouknow.com/2020/11/readthis.agathachristie.perilatendhouse.peachydeegan.harpercollins.williammorrow.html#.X7lGvGhKg2w
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
and we took a break from only him and did him with others in Midwinter Murder
and returned to only him with Death in the Clouds
The ABC Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Sad Cypress
One Two Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Under Dog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man's Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Halloween Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain Poirot's Last Case
MISS MARPLE:
The Murder at the Vicarage:
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder is Announced
About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only in the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, around thirty plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now-legendary Hercule Prior with her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In 1930, Miss Jane Marple made her first full-length novel appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage, quickly becoming another beloved and enduring character to rival Poirot's popularity. Additional series characters include the husband-and wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap opened in 1952 and is the longest running play in history. Academy Award-nominated actor and director Kenneth Branagh helmed the acclaimed major motion picture Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and its sequel, Death on the Nile, starring in both films as the Belgian detective. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. The one-hundred-year anniversary of Agatha Christie stories and the debut of Hercule Poirot was celebrated around the world in 2020. Whom You Know will never stop celebrating it!
