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Title: The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie ISBN: 0-451-20116-7 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 07 November, 2000 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 (16 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: almost a 5
Comment: The narrator of the 1942 story is Jerry Burton, an RAF pilot who was sent to recuperate from a crash in a quiet environment. Jerry and his sister Johanna moved to an out of the way little village but soon found that life there would be anything but peaceful. The first unsettling event was the arrival of a poison pen letter, an occurance that made them part of the village. Most of the rest of the town had gotten one already. Just as they were getting acquainted with their neighbors there was a suicide, or was it murder?
As time passed there were more letters, more deaths and romances. A less skillful writer would have made a confused mess of all of the various threads but Christie keeps the focus on the mystery while maintaining the romance as an interesting subplot.
The story has worn well in the intervening fifty years. The only dated aspect is that women's lives were more restricted then. So why is this story an 'almost' 5? The problem is that Miss Marple arrives on the scene about 3/4 of the way through the book and then does very little. For Miss Marple fans this is not nearly enough of her. In my opinion Christie should have either brought her in sooner or left her out altogether.
Despite this THE MOVING FINGER is an excellent story and one of Christie's most memorable stories.
Rating: 4
Summary: cosy village atmosphere and characters
Comment: In a forward Agatha Christie provided for a reprint of this book, she wrote of the pleasure it was to tackle one of the classic themes, and of the great pleasure she found in writing this book with its "cosy village atmosphere and characters".
The classic theme here is the phenomenon of the Poison Pen. The book is one of her shorter mysteries but one of the most cunningly devised. Adept at constructing puzzles, she opts for presenting this one as a first person narrative. The narrator is a young man recuperating from a flying accident, told by his doctor that he must "go and live in the country and lead the life of a vegetable for at least six months". With his sister he rents a cottage in a small English village "of no importance whatsoever".
Accordingly, when the poison pen letters begin circulating, it is this narrator, a stranger to the village, who decribes things as he sees them, retails all the local gossip, and reports everyone's suspicions about the writer of the letters. A murder and an apparent suicide follow, and we read of the efforts of the local police to investigate.
Miss Marple thus is introduced late in the book and, of course, she proves better at solving the mystery than everybody else. You will be an astute and alert reader if you discover whodunit before Miss Marple reveals all.
Rating: 5
Summary: My Favorite Christie Mystery!
Comment: I read almost all of Christie's books at one point 4 or 5 years ago. One of the last I hit upon was "The Moving Finger", and it turned out to be my favorite Christie mystery. I loved the main narrator - Jerry Burton; his neurosis, wit, simplistic arrogance and ultimately good heart were so novel to me, especially in a murder mystery. He was a breath of fresh air from the likes of Miss Marple and Poirot.
These many years later, I picked up the title again to see what I thought. I see now that the narrator reminds me in some ways of Grimes' main characters for her murder mysteries - intelligent, reserved, seemingly aloof, somewhat cynical, and ultimately kind bachelors written by females authors. Apparently I find this character irresistable as I love all of Grimes' work.
However, in going back and rereading some Grimes and some Christie, I am noticing how different their styles are. While I read Grimes' books the first time only 2 or 3 years ago, I find I can't remember the solution to her mysteries when I reread them because she buries her clues below a rich surface of character development. Christie, on the other hand, doesn't ever wander far from her murder mystery plot - no matter how much she may twist and turn it; and as soon as I started into this book I thought, "Oh, ______ did it". Even so, I enjoyed reading this little gem again.
That all said, in addition to having a neurotic narrator - which you may or may not enjoy - this mystery focuses on the reactions in a small country village as racy anonymous letters are received by everyone in town. Jerry Burton, the narrator, and his sister arrive from London for some needed R&R right about when these letters start becoming known and so are drawn in to the town's little scandal.
While Christie expounds on the psychology of those who write such notes, you have to watch all the details of the case. Like the murderer, Christie is masterful at getting you to focus on the wrong things...and then surprising you with the obvious solution. Very well done and a tribute to her uncanny gift of creating puzzles and then solving them for you.
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Title: A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie ISBN: 0451201191 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 09 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie ISBN: 0451199871 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: January, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie ISBN: 0451201159 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie ISBN: 0451200195 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 07 September, 2004 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie ISBN: 0451200209 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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