Similarities to real-life mysteries

AnubisAnubis Ontario, Canada
in General Agatha Christie discussions

Hi! I am new to this site and delighted to encounter others who share my interest in all things Agatha. I have tried to word the following comments so they are not SPOILERS for Murder on the Orient Express, Mrs McGinty’s Dead, Five Little Pigs, Elephants Can Remember, and Murder at the Vicarage. Dame Agatha used the Lindbergh kidnapping as an inspirational springboard for MOTOE. I wondered if any other of her works bore similarity to real-life mysteries and came up with a few (very tenuous) examples: FLP and the death of Charles Bravo in 1876: the unpleasant head of the household dies of poisoning, but was it an accident, suicide, or deliberate murder by one of the five or six people who all had a motive, including the wife? To this day, the mystery has never been solved. ECR and the deaths General and Mrs Luard in 1908: the wife is shot dead and the general dies of suicide. But who shot the wife? No one knows. MMD recalls the case Timothy Evans, a simple man unjustly hanged in 1950 for murders committed by John Christie. MATV and the murder of Francis Rattenbury are alike in terms of who commits the crime; but since the former was published in 1930 and the latter occurred in 1935, Dame Agatha could hardly have been inspired by it. Do you see any others?

Comments

  • GriseldaGriselda
    I think that in Mrs McGinty's Dead that the other SPOILER ALERT photographs in the newspaper of potential murderesses were based on well-known criminals of the time : especially the young girl who murdered her aunt. I think in other novels Miss Marple or Poirot has referred to this famous girl who killed a relative by way of illustrating why they think that a person who behaves thus as a child is actually evil. I don''t know, but something stirs in my memory about Point Zero. Did I read that the aspect of this story about SPOILER ALERT a young boy practising with a bow and arrow, was based on a true story?

  • GKCfanGKCfan Wisconsin, United States
    Griselda, here's a link to a copy of an article I wrote on this subject several years ago:

  • ChristeryChristery Rhode Island, United States
    The only one I remember hearing about was the Gene Tierney incident which GKCfan mentions in his article.
  • GriseldaGriselda
    Dear GKCFan  - Thank you so much for the link. I really enjoyed this meticulously researched article which has given me an insight into what aspects of crime may have fascinated AC.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    The Mirror Cracked was written based on a true occurrence, An Actress had a Disabled Child as a meeting with a Fan who was ill like Heather Badcock while the Actress was in the first stages of Labour, The Actress became a recluse..
  • shanashana Paramaribo, Suriname
    @GKCfan: I have also read your article and was impressed by the amount of research required to write it. I also discovered the article to be signed by the well known Chris_Chan. So are GKCfan and Chris_Chan the same person?
  • taliavishay-arbeltaliavishay-arbel
    Murder in Mesopotamia - while not based on a real murder, the main characters are based on real life characters: the Liedners on the Wolleys (also an archiological dig director and his wife) and Emmet on Max Mallowan (who AC met at their dig and later married).
  • AnubisAnubis Ontario, Canada
    Thank you GKCfan for that article: fascinating, with much that was new to me. 
  • GKCfanGKCfan Wisconsin, United States
    You're welcome!  Yes, "Chris Chan" is my real name.
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