I've come away from my regular visit to the Classic Mysteries vault this week with what I'd have to call a perennial favorite of mine: Agatha Christie's Mrs. McGinty's Dead. I like the way a police investigator comes to enlist Poirot on behalf of a convicted killer. I like the re-appearance in a Christie book of Ariadne Oliver, Christie's fictional alter ego. I enjoy the way Mrs. Oliver fights with the young author trying to adapt one of her books to the stage (to Ariadne Oliver's horror). And there's so much more. Here's a transcript of the audio review I recorded for the Classic Mysteries podcast about seven years ago, somewhat edited for clarity (as always):
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Superintendent Spence remembered it from his school days.
“Just a game. Child’s game. We used to play it when we were kids. A lot of us in a row. Question and answer all down the line. ‘Mrs. McGinty’s dead!’ ‘How did she die?’ ‘Down on one knee just like I.’ And then the next question, ‘Mrs. McGinty’s dead.’ How did she die?’ ‘Holding her hand out just like I.’ And there we’d be, all kneeling and our right arms held out stiff. And then you got it! ‘Mrs. McGinty’s dead.” ‘How did she die?’ ‘Like THIS!’ Smack, the top of the row would fall sideways and down we all went like a pack of ninepins.” Spence laughed uproariously at the remembrance.”
But Superintendent Spence has come to visit his old friend and colleague, Hercule Poirot, on a more serious matter. For, indeed, Mrs. McGinty is dead. Murdered. And a man has been convicted of the murder. Only Superintendent Spence, in charge of the murder investigation, doesn’t think that man did it. And he wants help from Poirot in finding the truth – before the supposed killer is executed. It happens in Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie.
The book opens at what, for many other mysteries, might as well be the end: the victim, a cleaning lady named Mrs. McGinty, has been murdered and robbed, an obvious suspect with motive, means and opportunity, a tenant named James Bentley, has been caught, he has been tried and convicted, and – this being Britain in the early 1950s – he is headed for a date with the executioner.
Only something is wrong. The man who headed the investigation into the murder, Superintendent Spence of the Colchester Police, doesn’t really believe that Bentley could be guilty. He doesn’t seem to have the right personality to have committed the crime.
But what can the superintendent do? The case is over. Bentley has been tried and convicted. Superintendent Spence has other cases to pursue.
So he goes to visit an old friend – the now retired detective, Hercule Poirot, a man who has been chafing against the boredom of his retired life. Poirot listens to his friend’s story and agrees to look into it as a private citizen. So he travels to the village of Broadhinny, where the murder took place, hoping to find something, some unexplored angle of the story which might provide an escape for James Bentley – and justice for the real killer.
Naturally, Poirot finds the kind of evidence he has been seeking – evidence that the crime was more than a sordid murder and petty robbery. No, there must have been another motive, and Poirot spends a good deal of time uncovering the truth about what really happened. Naturally, he plays this very close to his vest (though readers are given plenty of clues)…but he is annoying enough in his cryptic conversations with Superintendent Spence to force Spence to declare, “How I managed to keep my hands off you, I don’t know.”
He is helped in this by another of my favorite Christie characters – the mystery writer Ariadne Oliver. So here we are, in the midst of a story featuring an elderly foreign detective written by a middle-aged female author, talking with a character who is a middle-aged female author who writes mysteries about an older foreign detective. Ariadne Oliver exists to give Agatha Christie a chance to neatly skewer some of her own difficulties as a writer, and there is a subplot here involving Mrs. Oliver’s dealing with a young, brash playwright – a man who, in adapting the author’s work for the stage, seems intent on changing absolutely everything about Mrs. Oliver’s characters and plots. It’s really quite funny – and, remember please, that this is an Agatha Christie book, so there’s obviously going to be more going on here than meets the eye.
The plot really is one of Christie’s better ones, I think – well developed, interesting characters, a good use of humor, plus Christie’s trademarked sudden, unexpected plot twists. It really isn’t until the final confrontation, with Poirot explaining the truth to a room-full of suspects, that the reader will learn what really happened in Broadhinny – and why.
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead was originally published in 1952, at a time when Agatha Christie was deeply involved in several projects for the theater, which is another reason why the presence of Ariadne Oliver, supposedly wrestling with a playwright who wants to change just about everything in her work, is such a delight. This was Mrs. Oliver’s first appearance in a Christie novel since 1936, and she would appear several more times in later stories with Poirot. There’s a great deal to savor in Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, and it really is one of Christie’s best.
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You can listen to my original audio review by clicking here.
Next: No Coffin for the Corpse, by Clayton Rawson.
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