Agatha Christie Mystery Quiz #2: Guess This Village Mystery Novel | Murder Board
Study the Murder Board
Three clue photos. One corkboard. One classic Agatha Christie mystery. Study the clues and guess the novel.
Watch the Video
Extra Hint in the 16 second video, along with the solution.
Solution and Clue Breakdown
Spoilers below.
The torn personal column with the red circle. The most famous opening in all of Miss Marple. An advertisement appears in the North Benham News and Chipping Cleghorn Gazette: "A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 p.m. Friends, please accept this, the only intimation." The entire village turns up at Letitia Blacklock's house thinking it's some sort of murder mystery party game. At precisely 6:30, the lights go out, a torch beam swings around the room, two shots are fired, and a man falls dead in the doorway.
The pearl choker with the broken clasp. One of the most elegant clues in all of Christie. The pearls quietly reveal that someone at Little Paddocks is not who she claims to be. A casual remark about whether the pearls are real or costume becomes the thread that unravels the entire deception. Identity is everything in this book. Who is real? Who is borrowed? Who is wearing someone else's life like jewelry?
The framed photograph turned face-down. The whole mystery turns on impersonation. Someone has stepped into a dead woman's life, taken her name, her house, her inheritance, her future. And an old photograph would expose the truth in seconds. So the photograph has to disappear. And so does anyone who might recognize the face. This is what makes the second and third murders so chilling: they aren't crimes of passion. They're crimes of housekeeping. Loose ends being tied up.
The vintage chocolate advertisement. A perfect Christie misdirection. Chocolates run all the way through her work. So when experts see chocolates on the murder board, they're genuinely uncertain which Christie this is. But in this novel, an innocent gift of chocolates and a small bottle of aspirin become the means of the second murder. A trusting woman. A kindness offered. A doctored pill swapped in. The missing chocolate isn't missing because someone enjoyed it. It's missing because someone else was meant to.
The setting. Chipping Cleghorn. The quintessential English village in 1950: vicarages and gardens, sherry parties and church fetes, everyone's business known to everyone. Except, in postwar England, the world is full of displaced people who arrived from somewhere else with nothing but a story.
The detective. Miss Jane Marple: fluffy white hair, kind blue eyes, a knitting basket, and a mind like a steel trap. This is widely considered her finest case, and it showcases everything that makes her brilliant. Her patience, her gossip, her absolute refusal to be underestimated by anyone, least of all a killer.
The Answer
The Agatha Christie novel is: A Murder Is Announced (1950), the fourth Miss Marple novel.
About This Series
Murder Board is a visual mystery quiz series from Lies & Alibis Cozy Creative. Each post features a corkboard of clues pointing to one classic mystery novel. Can you guess the book before the reveal?