Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

We had seen heard so much about this broadway show that my husband wanted to read the book before attending the show. It was helpful for him.

THE MOUSETRAP and TEN LITTLE INDIANS were the very first Agatha Christie books I read and I suppose they didn't prepare me for the real Agatha Christie, who was a much tamer creature than you'd think from these two shockers. (Tamer, and more complex, I should add.) The Christie who wrote THE MOUSETRAP (or "Three Blind Mice," as they're calling it here) wasn't so much interested in Golden Age detection games as she was in creating old-fashioned, scream out loud sphincter clenching terror, and she didn't work in this mode very often, though there are Grand Guignol moments here and there (and, as Laura Thompson's new biography of Christie reveals, there are many more on the "cutting room floor"). But the murderous situation of THE MOUSETRAP, with its eerie, whistling prologue set in London, could have fit right in with the John Carpenter "Halloween" movies of the 1980s. Too bad film rights are tied up contractually until the end of the long running West End play! For it's a great script and what a part for a heroine too--a young woman, running a sort of "bed and breakfast" place way out in the middle of nowhere, "Monkswell Manor," with her husband Giles, who she realizes she actually doesn't know very well.... and this young woman, Molly, isn't as we find out entirely without secrets of her own--secrets she's practically been keeping from herself--it is a rich, psychologically multilayered characterization. Molly's background freed her up to a certain extent from the complacencies of ordinary bourgeois life, gave her the freedom to feel for and reach out to the gender-variant boarder, Christopher Wren. Whereas straight Giles feels awkward around and contemptuous of Wren, Molly's feelings are very different, she finds in him a fellow traveller as it were. All the while you're thinking, any one of these people might be the "three blind mice" whistling killer. It's scary as all getout. The other stories in the collection are uneven, and every fan will have his or her likes and dislikes. I found some of the Marple ones a bit farfetched--like, she comes up with the solution without any evidence whatsoever, just her intuition. I guess that's okay, but outside of the frame of the "Tuesday Club" (and was "Strange Jest" left out of THE TUESDAY CLUB MURDERS by mistake?) the Marple short stories aren't that great. What was Christie thinking when she dreamed up the title "Tape Measure Murder"? For those who don't know, the title gives away the whole ending of the story! On the other hand, it's great to see the return of Quin and Satterthwaite in THE LOVE DETECTIVES; and the Poirot case of THE THIRD FLOOR FLAT is surely one of her greatest inventions.

"Three Blind Mice and Other Stories," by the absolutely outstanding "Queen of Crime" Agatha Christie, is an absolute gem of a book! All of the nine stories in this collection shed light on Christie's gift of creating unforgettable characters and spine-tinglingly suspenseful plots. I particularly enjoyed reading "Three Blind Mice," (the novella of the collection) because I had recently seen a high school production of "The Mousetrap," the play that Christie wrote after the novella was so successful. I enjoyed comparing the two, because both verstions, though similar have many differences. This novella does not feature any of Christie's series detectives, (Hercule Poirot, or Jane Marple,) but is is outstandingly brilliant in introducing characters that will stay with you long after the book is completed. I'll say one thing, I'll never look at the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice" the same way again! Readers are treated to four delightful stories featuring Miss. Marple, ("Tape Measure Murder," "The Case of the Perfect Maid," "The Case of the Caretaker," and "Strange Jest.") The are treated to three stories featuring Hercule Poirot, "The Third Floor Flat," The Adventure of Johnny Waverley," and (my personal favorite,) "Four and Twenty Blackbirds," in which Poirot examines the eating habits of a certain individual in order to solve a murder. There is also a special treat of a story featuring Mr. Harley Quin called "The Love Detectives." All in all, a wonderful feast of humor, mystery, and suspense, which I'm sure will be enjoyed by people for many years to come. Happy reading to you all, and take care!!

These short stories all appear under their original titles (alternate titles are noted). If you're interested in Joan Hickson's unabridged narration of the 4 Jane Marple stories herein, see the recording MISS MARPLE INVESTIGATES. They are among the few Marple short stories that don't appear in THE THIRTEEN PROBLEMS collection. Two of the Poirot cases, on the other hand, appear in HERCULE POIROT'S EARLY CASES, while the third appears in THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING collection. "Three Blind Mice" - None of Christie's regular characters appear; this tale corresponds to the play 'The Mousetrap'. Once upon a time, in 1940, three young children were evacuated and sent to live at Longridge Farm. The Greggs treated them barbarously, and after one boy died, Mr. Gregg was killed escaping from the police, and Mrs. Gregg went to prison. Now Mrs. Gregg has been murdered just after her release from prison, and the next target appears to be a young woman at Monkswell Manor - but the murderer could be either the boy or the girl (now grown up), the Davises don't know the background of any of their paying guests - and they're snowed in. "Strange Jest" - Miss Marple has a missing will problem - except that in this case, the assets rather than the will itself are hidden. The stories I can think of with this theme are all of the form: wealthy uncle decides to amuse himself at his heirs' expense, and hides their inheritance. (Sayers' "The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will" from LORD PETER VIEWS THE BODY is a stronger story than "Strange Jest" - the uncle not only had a purpose in hiding the will, but a wicked sense of humor.) "Tape-Measure Murder" and "The Case of the Perfect Maid", like most Marple short stories (and unlike the novels) are set in St. Mary Mead. In the first case, mild Mr. Spenlow is suspected by the village of murdering his wife, whose body was discovered by a dressmaker coming in for a fitting. In the second, Miss Marple is asked to intercede with the Skinner sisters when they fire their maid, Gladys, with an implication of theft. The slur on her character is compounded when the Skinners bring in an outsider who appears to be a paragon - too good to be true. (As a bonus, the village eagerly awaits Dr. Haydock's first professional encounter with the hypochondriac Miss Emily, and he comes up to scratch.) To speed Miss Marple's recovery from a serious illness, Dr. Haydock writes up "The Case of the Caretaker" as a story-within-a-story for Miss Marple to get her teeth into. The end of Haydock's manuscript is an implied 'Challenge to the Reader', since at that point one has all the information needed to solve the puzzle; most of the stories of the Marple collection THE THIRTEEN PROBLEMS share this feature, although the other 3 Marple stories in this collection do not. "The Third-Floor Flat" When Patricia Garnett finds herself locked out of her 4th floor flat after a double date, one of the young men climbs up the coal lift ("Pat

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