Miss Marple Murder Is Easy Cast

1939 novel by Agatha Christie

Murder is Easy
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
Author	Agatha Christie
Cover artist	Not known
State	United Kingdom
Linguistic communication	English
Genre	Criminal offence novel
Publisher	Collins Crime Club
Publication engagement	5 June 1939
Media type	Impress (hardback & paperback)
Pages	256 (outset edition, hardback)
ISBN	978-0-00-713682-seven
Preceded past	Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Followed by	And And then In that location Were None

Murder is Easy is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland by the Collins Crime Club on 5 June 1939^[i] and in the US past Dodd, Mead and Visitor in September of the same twelvemonth under the title of Piece of cake to Impale .^[2] Christie's recurring graphic symbol, Superintendent Boxing, has a cameo appearance at the end, but plays no part in either the solution of the mystery or the apprehension of the criminal. The United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/half dozen)^[three] and the United states of america edition at $ii.00.^[2]

The novel concerns the efforts of retired police officer Luke Fitzwilliam to notice the identity of a serial killer, active in the village of Wychwood under Ashe. He learns that the series of deaths were mistaken for accidents past the locals, while the local nobleman Lord Whitfield attributes most of the deaths to divine justice.

Plot summary [edit]

Upon his render to England subsequently his overseas job in the constabulary, Luke Fitzwilliam shares a London-jump train carriage with Lavinia Pinkerton. She talks with him nearly her reason to travel to Scotland Yard, hoping for agreement. She plans to report a serial killer in her village and tells him who was killed and who will next exist killed. Amy Gibbs, Tommy Pierce and Harry Carter have been killed, and Dr John Humbleby will be the next victim. This woman reminds him of a favourite aunt, so he replies politely and recalls what she said.

He reads of Miss Pinkerton's death the adjacent mean solar day, and then of the expiry of Dr Humbleby, who has died of septicaemia. Luke will not let this rest, and he travels to the village, Wychwood under Ashe. He poses as ane finding cloth for a book on beliefs in witchcraft and superstition, as he investigates. He stays at the home of Gordon Ragg aka Lord Whitfield (Easterfield in the U.S. edition), challenge to exist a cousin of Bridget Conway, Whitfield's fiancée, and the cousin of his own good friend. He and Conway receive the assistance of Honoria Waynflete, a woman whom they believe may know the person backside the deaths. He talks with villagers to learn the stories of the recent murders, including Mr Abbot, the solicitor who fired Tommy Pierce from his service; the Reverend Mr Wake, local preacher; Mr Ellsworthy, an antique shop owner who appears to be mentally unstable, and Dr Thomas, Humbleby'due south younger partner. People in the hamlet view the deaths as accidents. Amy Gibbs died later confusing her cough remedy with hat paint in the night, Tommy Pierce died from falling from an upper-floor window at the library while cleaning the windows, Harry Carter barbarous from a bridge while boozer and drowned in the mud, and Humbleby died from a cut that became infected. Luke learns that Mrs Lydia Horton was another victim of these accidents—she was recovering from astute gastritis and was getting better earlier she had a sudden relapse and died.

Luke believes Ellsworthy to be the killer because of his mental instability. Seeing Ellsworthy render home with blood on his easily adds to this image. Later on in that twenty-four hours, Luke and Miss Waynflete witness Whitfield arguing with his chauffeur, Rivers, who had taken Whitfield's Rolls-Royce for a joyride. Luke finds Rivers dead, hitting by a decorative rock. Luke and Bridget realise that they are in love with each other, and Bridget tells Gordon of her conclusion to break off the engagement. Speaking with Luke, Gordon makes an odd argument. He claims that God kills people that do him harm, dispensing divine justice upon wrongdoers. Whitfield mentions that Mrs Horton had argued with him, Tommy Pierce did mocking impressions of him, Harry Carter shouted at him while drunk, Amy Gibbs was impertinent to him, Humbleby disagreed with him on the village water supply, and Rivers used his automobile without permission and then spoke disrespectfully to him; and all of them died soon after. Whitfield predicts that Luke and Bridget, having wronged him, will soon run across their fates too.

Luke changes his listen about who is responsible for the deaths, considering Whitfield as the murderer. He consults Miss Waynflete, who confirms his suspicions, and tells him of how she knew he was insane: when they were younger, Waynflete and Whitfield had been engaged to be married. Just one evening, Whitfield killed the bird that she kept as a pet, with the appearance that he enjoyed doing it. She ended their appointment.

Luke and Bridget decide that Bridget will leave Whitfield's manor to stay at Honoria Waynflete's house. Luke collects their luggage and prepares to leave, while Bridget and Honoria take a walk in the woods. Honoria reveals herself to be the murderer. During her engagement to Whitfield, Honoria had killed her own pet bird subsequently it bit her, which prompted Gordon to abandon the engagement. She vowed revenge on Gordon, and decided to set him up for crimes he did not commit. She encouraged him in the belief that God exacted firsthand retribution from those who disrespected him.

Honoria poisoned the tea for Lydia Horton, while encouraging others to believe the problem was in the grapes sent past Whitfield. Honoria killed Amy by swapping the bottles around in the dark and locking the door from the outside using pincers. She killed Carter by pushing him off the bridge on the solar day he had a row with Whitfield, and she likewise pushed Tommy Pierce out of the window while he was working. Whitfield had been the i to assign Tommy to this job.

Honoria sees that Lavinia Pinkerton realised she is the killer, and that Humbleby would be her adjacent victim. Honoria follows Lavinia into London and and so pushes her in front of a passing car. Honoria frames Whitfield past telling a witness that she saw the registration number of Whitfield'south Rolls-Royce. After inviting Humbleby circular to her business firm, she cut his manus with scissors. She and so applied a dressing to the wound, a dressing with pus seeping from her cat's ear; Humbleby dies a few days later from blood infection. Afterwards witnessing Rivers being sacked, Honoria hits him with a sandbag and caves his skull in with the rock pineapple.

Honoria drugs Bridget's tea and takes her into the woods, where the 2 of them began talking. Bridget does not potable the tea and is ready for what comes. Honoria reveals a knife covered in Whitfield's fingerprints, and informs Bridget that she will kill her and leave the pocketknife at the scene. Farther, Honoria arranges for Whitfield to be seen walking alone through the area where Bridget's torso will be. Instead, Bridget fights with Honoria. Luke realises that Honoria is the murderer and rescues Bridget. Bridget and Luke get out the hamlet to live together as a married couple.

Characters [edit]

Master characters [edit]

Luke Fitzwilliam – an ex-police officeholder in India, who meets on lath a train to London one Lavinia Pinkerton, a doomed Miss Marple-type lady who sets the plot in move fifty-fifty subsequently she is killed off; he is the novice investigator who figures out the killer, simply almost too late
Bridget Conway – Jimmy Lorrimer's cousin
Lord Whitfield (Easterfield in the U.S. edition) – Gordon Ragg, a self-made millionaire, and Bridget'southward fiancé; he owns Ashe Estate
Honoria Waynflete – a spinster once betrothed to Gordon Ragg

Suspects [edit]

Mr Ellsworthy – the owner of the antique shop, who performs occult rituals
Dr Geoffrey Thomas – the village physician (and partner of the late Dr Humbleby)
Major Horton – a widower who owns bulldogs
Mr Abbot – a local solicitor who employed Tommy Pierce
Mr Wake – the local rector

Supporting characters [edit]

Mrs Anstruther – Bridget's aunt
Jimmy Lorrimer – Luke's friend, Bridget's cousin
Mrs Church – Amy Gibb'southward aunt
Mrs Pierce – Tommy'south mother, has a tobacco and paper shop
Mrs Jessie Humbleby – widow of Dr Humbleby, Rose's female parent
Rose Humbleby – daughter of Dr Humbleby
Superintendent Battle - Inspector from Scotland Chiliad who helps to shut the case and arrest the suspect.
Sir William Ossington – Billy Basic, Luke's friend at Scotland Yard

Victims [edit]

Harry Carter – the landlord of the "Seven Stars" and a drunkard
Amy Gibbs – a servant
Mrs Lydia Horton – was Major Horton'southward married woman
Dr Humbleby – was a local doctor
Tommy Pierce – an annoying youth
Miss Lavinia Pinkerton – a spinster (run into above)
Mr Rivers – was chauffeur to Lord Whitfield

Literary significance and reception [edit]

The Times Literary Supplement of 10 June 1939 published a review of the volume by Maurice Percy Ashley, together with And Death Came Too by Richard Hull which began "A week in which new novels by Mr Hull and Mrs Christie appear should be a ruby-red letter week for connoisseurs of detective fiction. One must, notwithstanding, reluctantly confess that neither of them is fully up to standard."

After considering in isolation And Death Came As well, Mr. Ashley turned his attention to Murder is Like shooting fish in a barrel and started, "Mrs Christie has abased Grand. Hercule Poirot in her new novel, only it must exist confessed that his understudy, Luke Fitzwilliam, a retired policeman from the Mayang States is singularly defective in 'picayune grayness matter.' Poirot may have recently go, with advancing years, a trifle staid, but absenteeism makes the heart grow fonder of him." After outlining the nuts of the plot and the romantic interests of the main grapheme, Mr Ashley ended, "He (Luke) is less effective a detective than as a lover, which is not surprising since neither he nor the reader is provided with whatever clear clues pointing to the fantastically successful murderer. The love interest scarcely compensates for the paucity of detection and the characters verge on caricature; nor is Fitzwilliam able to recapture vividly enough the circumstances of the earlier murders."^[4]

In The New York Times Volume Review for 24 September 1939, Kay Irvin said the book was "ane of Agatha Christie's best mystery novels, a story fascinating in its plot, clever and lively in its characters and brilliant in its technique." She concluded, "The story's interest is unflagging, and the cease brings excitement as well as surprise."^[5]

William Blunt in The Observer of 4 June 1939 raised a question regarding Christie'south abilities to write non-crime fiction, which demonstrates that her nom-de-plumage identity of Mary Westmacott was not yet public knowledge: "I should hate to have to state on oath which I thought was Agatha Christie'due south best story, but I do call back I can say that this is well up in the offset six. The humour and humanity of its detail heighten a question which only one person can requite an answer. Agatha Christie has grown accustomed to working her embroidery on a background of black. Could she, or could she not, leave death and detection out, and embroider as well on green? I believe she is one of the few detective novelists who could. If she would let herself effort, just for fun. I believe it would exist very good fun for other people, also."^[vi]

E.R. Punshon in The Guardian 'due south issue of 11 July 1939 said that, "Readers may miss the about supernatural cunning of Poirot, just then if Luke too depended on the famous 'niggling grey cells' he would be just another Poirot instead of having his ain blundering, straightforward, yet finally effective methods." Mr. Punshon summed up by saying that the story, "must exist counted as notwithstanding another proof of Mrs Christie's inexhaustible ingenuity."^[7]

Mary Dell of the Daily Mirror, wrote on 8 June 1939, "Information technology'll keep you guessing volition this latest book from the pen of one of the best thriller writers ever."^[viii]

An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of 2 December 1939 said, "An anemic thread of romance threatens to sever on occasion but the mystery is satisfying and total of suspense."^[9]

Robert Barnard: "Archetypal Mayhem Parva story, with all the best ingredients: Cranford-style hamlet with 'about six women to every man'; doctors, lawyers, retired colonels and antique dealers; suspicions of black magic; and, every bit optional extra ingredient, a memorably awful press lord. And of course a generous allowance of sharp old spinsters. Shorter than most on detection, peradventure because the detection is, until the end, basically apprentice. Ane of the classics."^[ten]

Publication history [edit]

1939, Collins Crime Gild (London), v June 1939, Hardcover, 256 pp
1939, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), September 1939, Hardcover, 248 pp
1945, Pocket Books, Paperback, 152 pp (Pocket number 319)
1951, Pan Books, Paperback, 250 pp (Pan number 161)
1957, Penguin Books, Paperback, 172 pp
1960, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 190 pp
1966, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 219 pp

The book was beginning serialised in the US in The Saturday Evening Post in seven parts from 19 November (Book 211, Number 21) to 31 December 1938 (Book 211, Number 27) under the title Piece of cake to Kill with illustrations by Henry Raleigh. The Great britain serialisation was in xx-three parts in the Daily Express from Tuesday, 10 January, to Friday, 3 February 1939, as Easy to Kill. All the instalments carried an illustration by "Prescott". This version did not contain whatever chapter divisions.^[eleven]

Movie, Idiot box, theatrical or radio adaptations [edit]

1982 [edit]

Adapted into a television movie in the The states in 1982 with Bill Bixby (Luke), Lesley-Anne Down (Bridget), Olivia de Havilland (Honoria) and Helen Hayes (Lavinia), and subsequently for the stage by Clive Exton in 1993. In this accommodation, Luke is not a retired policeman but a professor from MIT on vacation.

2009 [edit]

A 2009 adaptation,^[12] with the inclusion of Miss Marple (played by Julia McKenzie), was included in the fourth series of Agatha Christie'due south Marple; information technology deviated significantly from the novel by removing some of the characters in it, while adding new ones and irresolute those left in. New subplots were introduced, and the murderer's motive was changed:

Miss Marple meets Lavinia Pinkerton on the train, non Luke, and learns from her of her suspicions about the village deaths and her plans to go to Scotland Yard.
Pinkerton is killed in a fall downward a London station escalator (about which Marple reads in the papers) rather than a hit-and-run, while en route to Scotland Yard.
The first two victims - the hamlet's vicar, and an elderly adult female who fabricated home remedies - dice differently, the vicar being killed by the murderer'southward tampering with his apiculturist'southward mask, causing him to inhale deadly fumes when spraying, and the adult female dying subsequently consuming poisonous mushrooms slipped surreptitiously into the pot of stew simmering on her hob.
Miss Marple meets Luke Fitzwilliam (played by Bridegroom Cumberbatch) in the village. He is not retired, but an active constabulary detective, and is dealing with a deceased relative'due south property. Both recognise one another's investigative inclinations and work together to solve the murders.
Gordon Whitfield and Giles Ellsworthy practice not appear. As a upshot, Honoria was said to take been one time engaged to Hugh Horton instead of Lord Whitfield.
Ii new subplots surround the murders, one involving a political campaign in the village, in which 1 of the candidates knew about the death of Honoria's brother and was blackmailed about information technology, while the other focuses on Bridget. Bridget is an American who arrives in the village in club to learn nearly the curious circumstances of her birth (she was establish almost the hamlet in a basket set adrift on the river). In the novel, Bridget was already well established in the village and was actually engaged to Lord Easterfield/Whitfield, while Luke is the newest arrival to the village and arranges to come up and investigate the mysterious deaths on the pretext of existence Bridget'due south cousin.
Amy Gibbs is fabricated a relative of one of the victims (someone who in the episode is known as Florrie Gibbs), and lives with Honoria.
Honoria Waynflete (played past Shirley Henderson) is shown every bit an as disturbed but much younger woman with a motive different from that given her in the original story. Her new motive for the murders is revealed to be a demand to muffle the truth behind an incident betwixt herself and her developmentally-disabled brother, who raped her after existence given his first drink of whisky and taught 'the facts of life'. Honoria confesses to having abandoned her daughter to fate, setting her adrift in a basket on the same river into which, some months earlier, she pushed her brother to his expiry. When her long-lost kid Bridget returns seeking answers, Honoria finds herself compelled to kill all those who know the truth about her actions.

2013 [edit]

A BBC Radio iv adaptation in 3 parts by Joy Wilkinson and directed by Mary Peate, with Patrick Baladi as Luke Fitzwilliam, Lydia Leonard as Briget Conway, Michael Cochrane every bit Lord Whitfield, Marcia Warren as Honoria Waynflete, Marlene Sidaway as Miss Pinkerton and Patrick Brennan as Billy Bones/Rivers.

2015 [edit]

The novel was adapted as a 2015 episode of the French television set serial Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie.

References [edit]

^ The Observer iv June 1939 (Folio 6)
^ ^a ^b "American Tribute to Agatha Christie". Home.insightbb.com. Retrieved ix July 2012.
^ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Printing (Second Edition) March 1999 (p. fifteen)
^ The Times Literary Supplement 10 June 1939 (p. 343)
^ The New York Times Book Review, 24 September 1939 (p. 20)
^ The Observer 4 June 1939 (p. 7)
^ The Guardian 11 July 1939 (Page 7)
^ Daily Mirror 8 June 1939 (p. 22)
^ Toronto Daily Star, 2 Dec 1939 (p. 13)
^ Barnard, Robert (1990). A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie (Revised ed.). Fontana Books. p. 199. ISBN978-0006374749.
^ Holdings at the British Library (Newspapers – Colindale). Shelfmark: NPL LON LD3 and NPL LON MLD3.
^ Wiegand, David (iii July 2009). "TV review: Agatha Christie'due south Miss Marple". SFGATE. Archived from the original on 5 December 2015. Retrieved 9 February 2020.

External links [edit]

Murder is Easy at the official Agatha Christie website
Murder is Like shooting fish in a barrel (1982) at IMDb
Marple: Murder is Easy (2008) at IMDb

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_is_Easy

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