They Do It with Mirrors

 Murder With Mirrors (aka They Do It With Mirrors; 1952) by Agatha Christie

American Ruth Van Rydock comes to England on one of her flying visits--to see her sister Carrie Louise Serrocold and her dear friend Miss Jane Marple. While at lunch with Miss Marple, she tells her friend that she's worried about Carrie Louise. something is not quite right at Stonygates where Carrie Louise lives in England. She can't say quite what, but she's sure that it involves danger of some sort for her sister. She tells Miss Marple that she has told Carrie Louise all about their "dear friend, Jane--all alone and in need after the war" and, if Carrie Louise asks (as she's bound to do) Jane to come for a visit, will she go? Will she go and use her knack for unraveling problems and understanding people to figure out what's wrong at Stonygates? 

Miss Marple agrees and when the invitation comes she is prompt to accept. She finds a house full of people including Louis Serrocold, Carrie Louise's current husband; Mildred Strete, Carrie Louise's widowed daughter; Stephen Restarick, her stepson from a second marriage; Gina Hudd, her granddaughter, and Gina's husband Walter (an unhappy, misplaced American); Juliet Bellever, housekeeper and devoted companion to Carrie Louise; and a whole institute full of delinquent boys that Louis Serrocold is endeavoring to rehabilitate. One of the boys, Edgar Lawson, has shown signs of improvement and is acting as Louis's secretary. In conversations with all of them, Miss Marple picks up little eddies of discontent and menace of a sort, but she can't quite identify the causes and the focus.

Then Christian Gulbrandsen, Carrie Louise's stepson from her first marriage, arrives unexpectedly. Since he is one of the trustees of the Gulbrandsen Institute and executors of the Gulbrandsen Trust, everyone assumes that some sort of business must have brought him back to England so abruptly. Miss Marple overhears a bit of his conversation with Serrocold--only enough to verify that there is something that concerns Carrie Louise. But before Christian can do much of anything, there is a scene between Serrocold and Edgar in Louis's study. A scene that is noisy enough to draw everyone's attention and which results in shots being fired. However, when the everything is over, the person who has been shot is Christian Gulbrandsen who had gone to his room to write a letter to the other Gulbrandsen trustee. It looks like Christian was shot because he was about to reveal that someone has been systematically poisoning Carrie Louise. And, if true, there's a wide field to choose from who might benefit from her death. But did anyone need money badly enough to poison sweet Carrie Louise? It isn't until Miss Marple remembers the old conjuring trick with mirrors that she sees the full picture of the plot.

For this outing, I actually listened to Joan Hickson's audio novel version from Hoopla even though I own the book in two editions (the one pictured above as well as a digest-sized edition by Pocket Books). I'll address the audio novel first and then talk a bit about the book itself. While I love Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and, for me, she will always be the Miss Marple, I have to say that her audio novel is more like storytime with Miss Marple rather than a performance of the book. There is some small attempt to give a different intonation to the male characters, but in actuality this is just Joan Hickson reading us the story. There nothing wrong with that--I like being read to. But if you're expecting a vocal performance that will give definition to each character, then you will probably be disappointed.

The mystery is a good bit of misdirection for first-time readers. I found that even though this isn't one of Christie's "big" plots (once read, never forgotten) and it had been quite some time since I last read it, I still remembered a great deal of the details. It didn't take long to be absolutely certain who did it and why. I gave more attention this time to the characters and appreciating how much Christie could tell us in her brief descriptions. I also like that Miss Marple is in it from the beginning and is really, truly the star of the show throughout. ★★★★

First line: Mrs. Van Rydock moved a little back from the mirror and sighed.

Last lines: "I don't suppose you can," said Miss Marple. "It was all a long time ago..."
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Deaths = 6 (one shot; one hanged; two hit on head; two drowned)