This was an easy read for me, as I so well know the mystery.
The Mirror Crack'd has been filmed several times, notably in 1980. However, the novel is constructed in a way so different from the films I've seen, it's like a new mystery.
After previous novels that happen elsewhere, this one returns to St. Mary Mead where there have been many changes since Murder At The Vicarage. Supermarkets encroach on the high street, and the field beyond the Vicarage has been turned into a housing development for many new families. Jane Marple is recovering at home from bronchitis and has young Cherry Baker and annoying Mrs. Knight to nurse her. She is getting older and even knitting is a chore. Still, she wants to hear all the news from Dolly Bantry who has just sold Gossington Hall (scene of The Body In The Library) to the American actress Marina Gregg and her husband Jason Rudd.
At a benefit party at the house, Marina was greeting her guests on the upper landing and is introduced to Heather Babcock. Heather tells her they had met many years before, but Marina isn't listening, a kind of shock had came over her. Recovering quickly, she returns to being a gracious hostess. A while later, Heather collapses into a chair, poisoned to death by a drink intended for Marina Gregg. While Inspector Craddock begins investigating, Marina is terrified of another attack on her life. Her husband Jason consoles and watches over her, her secretary Ella also starts sleuthing. Soon there are warning letters and poisoned coffees, blackmail, ex-husbands and long lost children, a shooting, and another death by nasal spray. Who would be out to kill Marina and why?
Even though I knew who the killer was, I was impressed with how the story was constructed. The novel has all the village characters such as maids, doctors and friends, relating the events to Marple - while the film version centres on Marina and the shooting of a film at a nearby studio (Even adding several characters and story lines that aren't in the book). All the basic elements are there, but it's told from a different angle. It's like watching the events of Rear Window from another apartment!
Marina Gregg is tall and bony, so they cast Elizabeth Taylor in the film. Her husband Jason is quite ugly, with the craggy misshapen face of a clown, so they cast Rock Hudson!
This novel also centres on the effects the housing development and modernization takes on St. Mary Mead. After so many Marple novels, I enjoyed hearing what had happened to the characters there, like Dolly Bantry - to visit the renovated Gossington Hall, and to hear of the changes to the village. The murder and the arrival of the filmmakers is seen through their eyes, a different take on the story I've known.
As always, a unique mystery with an original twist at the end. Knowing who-done-it didn't diminish the enjoyment of reading it.
1962 / Tradeback / 269 pages
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