A Murder is Announced (1950) by Agatha Christie: A Reread

📰 From the first four (based on publication dates) murder mysteries of Miss Jane Marple, I think this one is my favorite. Miss Marple is less "faded into the background" than the other three. She even arranged a rather theatrical performance to induce the murderer to show themselves, so to speak. Much like what Hercule Poirot often does. It's quite surprising, came from Marple, and I liked that.

 📰 The inhabitants of a little village called Chipping Cleghorn (what a charming name for a village!) were not a little surprised one day, finding an odd advertisement in their local gazette: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.’ The early chapters are about several different houses in Chipping Cleghorn - our characters to be - revealing how the advertisement had stirred them. And believe me, after three of them, I could cite the advertisement by heart! The general reaction was exciting; they took it as an invitation for a soiree with murder game as main entertainment. And so, all of the characters did appear at Little Paddock a little before 6:30 p.m., with their own "reason" to stop by.  

📰 The residents of Little Paddock, however, saw the advertisement, and were half annoyed and half amused. That is a nasty prank, who would have done that?! Little Paddock belongs to Letitia Blacklock, a sixty-ish spinster who had worked as secretary to a wealthy businessman. She lives with her companion, Dora Bunner, an old schoolfriend whom she had taken in the year before. A young war widow, Philippa Haymes, is also boarding there; as well as Letitia's cousins she hadn't seen before: Patrick and Julia Simmons. Last but not least, a foreign girl called Mitzi, a hysterical creature but a splendid cook. Annoyed as they all were, they did their best to prepare for the inevitable visits of their curious and highly excited neighbors.

📰 When the clock chimed at 6:30, a succession of events started: the lights went out; a man with a pistol opened the door and shot twice; then he collapsed after another shot. After the men from the guests fixed the fuse, the lights came, and they found the mysterious man dead, while the bullet from his shot had grazed Miss Blacklock's ear. Is it a an attempted murder to Miss Blacklock? But why did the man then killed himself? Suicide out of remorse? Inspector Craddock, who investigates the case, is as appalled as the Chief Constable, when enters Miss Jane Marple, an old gibberish spinster who's visiting her friend at Chipping Cleghorn. Of course there's no further question, it was a murder after all. And not just one, for two more are following as the investigation is progressing.

📰 I remember the excitement excitement of my first reading of this book many years ago. The premise is a clever one: announcement to a murder, then the murder is committed with an audience as eye witnesses. What a daring and cold-blooded kind of murder! My favorite part is when the two spinsters who were guests at the Little Paddock (Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Mugatroyd) are reconstructing the event (the scene is a bit funny but also thrilling). Although, as usual, we don't get to know the final answer 'till the end, I guessed the murderer correctly! All in all, this was a perfectly-constructed murder mystery (the proportion of mystery and thriller, action and reflection, are so well balanced). I guess I have just found my favorite Miss Marple mystery!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge 2026

hosted by Carol @ Carol's Notebook

Books from Two Women Writers New to Me: Mini Reviews

Cold Sassy Tree (1984) by Olive Ann Burns

🧡 Set in the early of 20th century of Southern America, here is a remarkably vivid story of a small rural village in Georgia, named after some iconic sassafras tree that shaded the village during hot summer days: Cold Sassy Tree. It's told from the POV of Will Tweedy, fourteen years old when the story begins. His Grandma had just been dead for three weeks when Grandpa E. Rucker Blakeslee announced that he is going to marry the young milliner who's been working at his store: Miss Love Simpson. The news shook both family and the village, like never before - the scandal, and the sheer audacity of it. Amidst all the turbulences, Will Tweedy learned substantial things, while growing up into adolescence. 

🧡 This is a wonderfully crafted story, vividly portraying the gossips and prejudices of rural villagers. I liked the heterogeneous characters; they are who drive the story. It tackles the theme of family, women's struggles, death, and religion. It is humorous, witty, and near the end, poignant and full of wisdom.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tea Is So Intoxicating (1950) by Mary Essex

☕ Germayne freed herself from what she felt as a boring marriage with a man called Digby, leaving her daughter, and ran away with her lover David Tompkins. They settled in a cottage in a small Kentish village called Wellhurst. David is the dreamy kind of chap. Right then his dream was to open a tea house; having worked at a tea house himself, though only as a bookkeeper. Although he didn't posses skill and experience, neither as cook nor businessman, David insisted that he's sure to make the tea house, aimed to cater weekend hiker and daily tourist, successful. The village's negative reaction and gossips doomed the tea house to be a failure from the start, not mentioning the Tompkins' lack of ability. And to add complication, entered an Italian flirtatious cake-cook that David hired, over whose furtive winks some men completely lost their heads.

☕ This is my first of Mary Essex - pseudonym of Ursula Bloom - and I liked her style. It's a satire without being too blatant; it's funny, though quite subtle. Based on this book only, I'll place her between Barbara Pym, Nancy Mitford, and PG Wodehouse. I know those are three different poles, but if you could draw three lines from them to one center point, that's where you'll find Mary Essex. A very entertaining and refreshing book!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Our Spoons Came from Woolworths (1950) by Barbara Comyns

🥄 Barbara Comyns is an author I have first heard from #booktwitter. I've been meaning to try her book to see what the fuss really is about, when I spotted Our Spoons Came from Woolworths on the "Audiobooks Recommended for You" section on my Everand the other day. (I love you, algorithm!) And so, without further consideration, I listened to it. Now I can report back that #booktwitter had been right, Barbara Comyns is something of an author, and that I've found yet another author I'd love to read more of!

🥄 Our Spoons is a semi-autobiographical novel, based on Comyns' marriage to John Pemberton, which ended in 1935. Sophia Fairclough is the heroine, a twenty-one naïve young girl who lived in 1930s bohemian London. She's a painter, and having fond of a fellow painter called Charles, they were soon married. Young (Sophia is just about nineteen), poor - very poor, and naïve, it's pretty hilarious to follow their ignorance and blunders throughout their household lives. Sophia's cooking tasted like soap at first, and she thought that strongly wishing not to get pregnant is an effective birth control.

🥄 To support the household costs, Sophia had a job as model for painters. Whereas Charles, he's as selfish as most painter characters I've read in novels - they only think about their paintings, and what they need to create the art. If people don't buy it? Well, let them keep painting. Sophia seems to be ignorant of many things, but she correctly called Charles' behavior as Peter Pan's.

🥄 Of course, when they were poorest, Sophia got pregnant. Her labouring process provided many scenes which would have been painful to read, if Comyns didn't polish them with wit and humour, which resulted into a quite entertaining piece. It was one of several parts from the book that derived from Comyns' real experience. The hospital is terrible to poor people, and Charles' rich relatives weren't helpful either. They all blamed Sophia for being pregnant and thus hindered Charles to be creative - as if being pregnant isn't a work of two! This phase - pregnancy to the birth of their healthy boy - must have been horrifying for Comyns; though she had written about it with such humour and wit that made it ironically funny.

🥄 Then entered another artist called Peregrine, with whom Sophia had had an affair. When I thought he was a better man for her, another crisis came that thwarted my hope. But in the end, those struggles shaped Sophia to be a better person. Her cooking was much improved that she even worked as a cook. I'm happy for her in the end, she deserves a happy ending!

🥄 Needless to say, I loved this book. Comyns wrote it brilliantly, she successfully presented a satire of the hypocrite British society in that era in a funny piece of fiction. The narrator of the audiobook I listened to (Madeleine Leslay) also did a good job in performing it. She voiced Sophia perfectly.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

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20 Books of Summer

hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books