Have You Solved A Murder ?

MarcWatson-Gray

Have any members of the Agatha Christie forum ever solved one of the murders in the stories before the ending ? And not just a guess,but an educated, correct identification based on the facts given ?

Or have you came up with a completely different culprit (or culprits )that again could have committed the crime based on the facts ?

I have never started a book(reading it for the first time ) with the intention of solving it.I just go along for the ride.

But i do believe that some people do start out with the intention to solve the crime 

taliavishay-arbel

I always try to guess the murderer, but I have never succeeded!

Lucy G Lemon

I only once came close to guessing - and that was Hotel at Bertram's. But I can't say that my answer was solely based on facts - it was more of a hunch.

At other times I have been amazed at how wrong I have been when I have tried to make an educated identification!

Like you MarcWatson-Gray, I am not reading with the explicit intention of solving the puzzle - more to be caught up in the world of the story.

Good discussion topic!

Lucy G Lemon

Sorry I meant At Bertram's Hotel!  See how careless I am with the details!!!

MarcWatson-Gray

Thanks Lucy G Lemon.I think i'll try it on one of the Non Marple/Poirot books that i haven't read for some time.But i'm sure i'll be extremely disappointed with my results !!1

Lucy G Lemon

Good idea  - you never know!

I get a notification by email of all new posts no matter what board they are posted on (I thought everybody must). Anyway - see how you go.

Griselda

Because he is the usual type of charming villain, I guessed that SPOILER ALERT David Hunter was the murderer in Taken at the Flood, but I didn't guess by following clues.

Dead Man's Folly was brilliant for outwitting the reader: it seemed evident after the book was read. 

I didn't have the opportunity to guess when, for the first time in my adult life,  I read the other novels because I had seen the television adaptations, even if I didn't remember I'd seen them until I was three quarters through the book.

MarcWatson-Gray

My next read is to be The Man In The Brown Suit.........So I'm going to give it a go......I've only read it once a few years ago,so hopefully i won't remember who did it !!!!

Yes Griselda.David Hunter was quite the "bad boy" and i think i suspected him ( on and off !! )

Read Death In The Clouds recently and wouldn't have had a clue ??

Tommy_A_Jones

I tried when Reading Death In The Clouds, I was spurred on my the Passenger plan in my Paperback version, I narrowed it down to 2 and got the wrong one.

MarcWatson-Gray

I tried that with the sleeping compartments in M.O.T.O.E. but to no avail !!! Well done in getting it down to 2 !!

Tommy_A_Jones

I think I must have got the Projectory wrong, I wish I still had that copy I would try again, The layout isn't as spectacular in my Hard-back Copy.

tudes

Yes, a few times, but I have to say that it was a mixture of hunch and kwnowing how A.C writes, I mean, the experience of reading her novels. You "learn" how to identify the culprit and why he/she did it, so you're able to guess the murderer and so on.

Griselda

Hi Marc, yes death in the clouds very hard. What about The Blue Train - very tricky too. Only a slight clue about where a robbery had taken place in earlier years?

MarcWatson-Gray

Very true Griselda !!! I must admit to having narrowed down to two possibles as to the identity of who Mr Brown was in The Secret Adversary.....due to the reaction of a character when seeing two particular people ...... I'll say no more !!!.......Not that i was attempting to solve this mystery............Now....The A.B.C Murders' twist was very good............

Lucy G Lemon

I loved The ABC Murders twist - soooo clever!

Griselda

The ABC murder was a little bit better signposted than some other mysteries because of the SPOILER ALERT train table and the way the murderer - before we know who he/she is - starts making a methodical list of clues. Cat. Among the Pigeons wasn't very easy to spot, I think.

Tommy_A_Jones

No, How could anyone have solved that?

Griselda

You mean how could anyone solve Cat Among The Pigeons? SPOILER ALERT, If you do, only because that efficient, cool single-minded female secretary type is an indicator for the murderer. SPOILER ALERT it was the murderous accomplice inSparkling Cyanide, and wasn't,t but could have been in The Mirror Cracked FromSide to Side.

Tommy_A_Jones

I don't quite understand that Griselda, Are You pointing out I should have put SPOILER ALERT? which I think I agree with although I didn't put details, Are you saying the Actress is the same as in Sparkling Cyanide and The Mirror Crack'd Please explain.

maryamalbulushi

Actually I always read ac not only because I enjoy that but also to solve the case with the detective base on clues that I get and whatsoever. And guess what I succeeded twice .. I myself can't believe that one was 4.50 from Paddington and the other was n or m ? BTW in n or m I only guessed **spoiler alert ** the lady connecting all the facts but I didn't catch the man

Griselda

Sorry Tommy, I was seeking clarification on which was the crime novel of Agatha Christie's which you felt nobody would have been able to solve. I had said that ABC Murders had a massive clue, in the sense that the murderer gathers everyone involved in the sleuthing and starts itemising the clues they have using a very systematic and, I think, alphabetical, or numerical recording approach. A bit of a hint that this man's brain works in the same way as the killer's has. I was saying that there are few clues along the way as to who might be the culprit in Cat Among The Pigeons. However, the best way to get your guess right is to look for a type. Agatha Christie loves using the good looking, Irishblooded happy-go-lucky young males, but she also goes for a super - efficient, clinical secretary type, believing, as she explains in one of your least favourites, Sparkling Cyanide, that their efficiency hides an overpowering avarice to have a good shot at the highlife themselves. The murderer SPOILER ALERT in CATP is the capable secretary type. By the way, the good looking males I allude to are SPOILEr ALERT, Simon Doyle, David Hunter, Lawrence Redding, Patrick Redfern, and, I think she had earmarked Ralph Paton in Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but a member of the aristocracy she had met suggested the ending and culprit she did decide upon eventually. Which is the hardest crime to solve, Tommy? I have always found I realise that I read the book when I was 14, and now remember the end, or I realise I have caught some of it on TV, so I am never guessing for the first time, except in Taken at the Flood.

Quanquan Z

I once figured out the murderer in The Murder On THE Nile but I've never succeeded in identifying a real murder.

Or it's just because I have never seen a real murder.

MarcWatson-Gray

I'm glad that you have not had the misfortune to witness a real murder   Quanquan Z. ha ! Neither have i.

i don't think a real murder would in any way shape or form resemble and Agatha Christie murder.That's why we love them so much.There is something cozy ?? and reassuring about them.One gets the feeling that although some one has just been done to death,everything will still be alright and life will go on.

Well done for Death On The Nile though !!

Griselda

Death on the Nile is an achievement! Did you, Quan Quan Z, get the clue about the SPOILER ALERT the scarf being pulled out of the river, and having signs of a gun being fired through it, but the scorch marks on the dead heiress's head showing that no scarf or other cloth to muffle sound was used? The clue about the maid speaking as if she wants to give somebody who is in the room a hint, and the murderer easing his voice when speaking are good clues for the reader. How did you guess? Was it just certain characters seeming unnatural?

anne.clough.3

I don't know about anyone else, but I solved Death on the Nile because of

SPOILER - Both of the plotters used the same phrase when talking to Poirot about Simon's so called "falling for Linnet.". It was something about Jackie being the moon and Linnet the sun, and once the sun comes out you cannot see the moon. I thought that was not something both people would say independently, that they had to have colluded and this was the reason I suspected them.

I solved Halloween Party because of the

SPOILER - Water on a certain character.

I solved Peril at End House because

SPOILER - The name of the murder victim and the fact that she was wearing the shawl and it seemed so obvious that she was being set up to be murdered, supposedly, in mistake for the murderer.

MarcWatson-Gray

Fantastic..I'm about to begin The Man In The Brown Suit....So i'm gonna give it a go....Just finished.The Pale Horse.......Didn't see that one coming either !!!!!

Tommy_A_Jones

Thankyou Griselda, CATP is the only one that comes to mind where it is impossible to solve the Crime but I do admit that with Sparkling Cyanide I can't remember if it is easy to solve purely because I dislike it so much and so Hardly ever think of my experience of reading it, some I dislike as much but it is obvious in Retrospect who the Murderer is like in Murder In Mesopotamia and it is in retrospect obvious who the Murderer(s) are in Body In The Library, A Murder Is Announced and probably more, with the 2 I mention I suppose all you have to do is sit quietly and think about the book in your Head but as I say The Brilliant CATP is the only one that comes to mind where you can't work out who did it. BTW is Taken At The Flood The Book with David Hunter? I suppose it is hard working out who the Murderer is in that Book and I think 3rd Girl is impossible to solve, I never thought of that (I probably did when reading it but not when the Thread started.

Anubis

You folks are clever — never have I been able to deduce or guess who the real culprit was. 

Griselda

You have my deepest admiration Anne Clough. I remember now that I did actually read Peril at End House without having seen it on tv, and I most certainly did not get the name clue. The character and personality of the murderer shine through in retrospect, the way she is like her grandfather is good, the cousin solicitor saying she was passionate about the house, and being right. All magnificently nuanced. And it is really chilling and like you are deep in a mystery when SPOILER ALERT the chocolates arrive (also done, by the way in Three Act Tragedy) and Poirot is perplexed and cross with himself. That is a clue that nobody would actually take a risk on that strategy except the killer who could do it more easily (echoes of A Murder is Announced in that the killer is the obvious person to SPOILER, set themselves up). I don't know how you got all those, and on the Nile. Well done. You should be an advisor for tv drama on whether the clues are subtle or fair enough, only, then again, BBC and ITV only care, I think, about getting the costumes right, and a suitably obvious suggestion of s-x coupled with a cloying and irksome coyness.

taliavishay-arbel

Even If I can't solve the murders, I find it fun to go back over the books after I've read who the murderer (or Murderess) is, and identify the clues. interestingly - sometimes there are clues along the way which aren't mentioned in the denounment. e.g., I've just been re-reading "Death on the Nile", and when Simon is talking to Poirot, complaining that Jackie loves him too much and a man likes to do the running, he suddenly falters, and rereading it I understood that at that point he was actually talking about Linnet and not Jackie and suddenly realized it.. 

anne.clough.3

Thank you, Griselda.

I find that sometimes when reading, a clue will just pop out at me, suggesting a certain person/people as the culprit(s). I then go back and check certain points to see if they fit in. Sometimes I am right, but other times I have fallen for the red herring.

In Five Little Pigs, I was convinced

SPOILER - It was the younger sister. Caroline Crale  thought so too, but we were both wrong.

In Sleeping Murder, my choice for the killer was

SPOILER - The Major's wife, because she was not home at the time when the poison was planted near the end of the story.

I was always very pleased with myself when I was able to guess the killer. Some of the others I guessed right were;

A Caribbean Mystery

A Murder is Announced

The Sittaford Mystery

Towards Zero

They Came to Baghdad

The Secret Adversary

Dumb Witness ( SPOILER - The Mirror clue gave it away)

Nemesis

They do it with Mirrors

Crooked House

Murder is Easy

Three Act Tragedy (SPOILER - The title and the murderer's profession was the biggest clue)

I think these are all the ones I guessed correctly.