Customer Reviews

Mrs. McGinty's Dead (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mrs. McGinty is an elderly cleaning woman whose brutal murder in her village of Broadhinny leads to the arrest of her lodger, James Bentley. The motive appears to be robbery as her small cache of savings is found hidden near her cottage and her blood and hair are found on Bentley's coat. But Superintendent Spence(whom we met in Taken At The Flood) suspects something is not quite right and calls in Hercule Poirot to investigate this crime.

Poirot is most unhappy at the Summerhayes family home where Mrs. McGinty had been the domestic help. Without Mrs. McGinty the home is a disaster, and Poirot's love of order, method, and delicious food suffers greatly. Poirot persists in his investigation, however, and discovers an old newspaper with cut-out pages. The discovery of the missing article leads him to investigate the homes Mrs. McGinty cleaned, and he finds guilty secrets in each one. With the help of Ariadne Oliver who adds much comic relief, Poirot finds the person with a shameful past who feared exposure by Mrs. McGinty.

In 1964 this novel was adapted to the big screen. Poirot was replaced by Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) in the screen version known as "Murder Most Foul." The substitution is understandable since Miss Marple is the noted authority on village crime, but the result was less than pleasing. The plot was changed to such an incredible degree that there is very little resemblance to Christie's outstanding novel.

What "improvements" have been made for the Berkley edition? There are already major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There are further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further differences still in the Signet, Bantam, and Black Dog & Leventhal editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.

Hercule Poirot is bored, so he is delighted when he is visited by his old friend Superintendent Spence of the Kilchester Police. Spence has recently conducted an investigation into the murder of an old charwoman Mrs McGinty, in the village of Broadhinny. her lodger, James Bentley has been convicted of the murder and is due to hang, but Spence is convinced Bentley is innocent, and wants Poirot to investigate.

Poirot goes to stay in the village of Broadhinny, and soon begins to uncover reasons why other people might have wanted Mrs McGinty dead. While investigating the murder, he has to cope with staying at the dreadful guest house run by the Summerhayes, a couple who have no idea of how to keep house or cook an edible meal.

The scenes where the sufferings of Poirot at the guest house are described are among the most amusing in this very amusing book. There are many interesting characters, particularly the scatty but charming Maureen Summerhayes, whom Poirot likes in spite of her atrocious cooking. And there is the maddening James Bentley, the convicted murderer, whose unprepossesing character only makes Poirot more determined to prove him innocent.

One of the most amusing exchanges in the book occurs near the end: ' "Mon Dieu, how stupid I have been," said Hercule Poirot, "The whole thing is simple, is it not?" It was after that remark that there was very nearly another murder - the murder of Hercule Poirot by Superintendent Spence.' Enjoy it.

Written in 1950, MRS. MCGINTY'S DEAD was published for the first time in 1951. I like a lot this novel because Hercule Poirot appears at last as a human being in it. So we learn that the illustrious detective feels very old and that he appreciates the haute cuisine, particularly cooked snails. Look also for the character of Ariadne Oliver, Agatha Christie's literary double. The thoughts she formulates about Sven Hjerson, the detective appearing in her own novels, leave a bitter taste in the mouth considering the fact that Agatha Christie could say the same words speaking of Hercule Poirot.

Hercule Poirot has been enjoying his retirement. His main concern of each day is planning the menu for his next meal - it is a pity that one can only truly enjoy three meals a day! His old friend Inspector Spence asks him to look into a case for him. Mrs. McGinty, a charwoman in a small village was brutally murdered. Spence has already caught the murderer, (the woman's lodger) a jury has found him guilty and the date for the execution has been set. The only problem is that the good inspector has doubts.

Poirot agrees to look into the matter and sets off for the village of Broadhinny, where the crime took place. He takes up residence in the only available lodging in town, a very disorganized bed and breakfast, suffering dreadfully from the terrible accomodations and worse meals and begins working on the case. While there Poirot mets an old friend, Ariadne Oliver, famous mystery novelist who was in Broadhinny working on a stage adaption of her work. In the end of course, Poirot solves the crime and sees that justice is served.

The mystery here is a recurring theme of Christie's, an old crime that has resurfaced years later and requiring many old secrets to be revealed. The only problem with this particular novel is that it is quite complicated with many characters and their stories that tend to become a bit difficult to keep straight. On the plus side we are treated to yet another visit with Ariadne Oliver, always a delight. We are also introduced to the Summerhayes family, a wonderfully disorganized group that really diserve their own book.

Hercule Poirot should be enjoying his retirement; but both boredom and the inability to have more than three meals per day mean that he's somewhat discontent. Then he gets a visit from Superintendent Spence, who has some troubling news to present to Poirot. Almost a year ago an elderly charwoman named Mrs McGinty was found dead in her home, and her gloomy, introverted lodger has just been found guilty of her murder. But Spence is not entirely convinced of his guilt, based on nothing more than the man's passive temperament. He simply doesn't *seem* the sort of man to kill an elderly woman.

Poirot agrees to look into the case, and travels to the small village of Broadhinny to investigate, choosing to be open and candid about his actions (and more confident than he really feels) in the hopes that it will stir the murderer into giving themselves away. And yet, there seems to be absolutely nothing worth investigating. Mrs McGinty was a thoroughly uninteresting woman who worked in several houses as a cleaning lady. Nobody seemed to gain anything from her death, and she herself was a somewhat reclusive figure. It seems a hopeless case.

And yet this only spurs Poirot on. As he points out, the fact that the victim and the crime are so painfully ordinary points to one logical conclusion: that the murderer must be quite extraordinary. And so it is when he goes through the dead woman's belongings that he discovers something interesting...evidence that perhaps Mrs McGinty knew something about one of her employers that they had hoped was buried deep in the past.

About halfway through, Poirot is joined by the familiar face of Ariadne Oliver, the novelist who has come to oversee the adaptation of one of her novels into a play. As always, Christie manages to insert a bit of her own attitudes toward authorship into this reoccurring character. In this case, Ariadne is in agony over the changes a playwright wants to make over her characters and situations, as well as frustration at how much she dislikes her own protagonist (reflecting Christie's own feelings toward the somewhat pompous, fastidious Poirot). She also alludes to a gaff Christie made in an earlier book Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot), in which she made a blowpipe one foot long, instead of six (and the reader who wrote to inform her especially of this).

Named after a children's game, "Mrs McGinty's Dead" is a village mystery, usually reserved for Christie's other famous detective, Miss Marple. By putting Poirot in this setting, Christie makes this a more comedic effort thanks to the Belgian's rather miserable stay in a guest house. As with all of Christie's novels, this is an entertaining read throughout, with plenty of suspicious characters, intriguing relationships and plenty of red herrings. Perhaps not her best or most memorable work, but as always, a great read for a wintry night.

More re-reading of Christie continues. I'm reading the original 1st edition. (I'm tending to avoid paperback reprints since I just learned many of them have been edited, re-punctuated and expurgated, esp. the versions published from 1990 to the present.) Agatha was quite funny in this one. I laughed out loud several times. Of course Mrs. oliver is in this one and she's meant to be a parody of Agatha herself. So there's bound to be a few laughs at the outset. And in the subplot Ariadne Oliver is collaborating with Robin Upward, the insufferable egotistical playwright, who wants to re-write one of her novels as a marketable action-oriented entertainment with a matinee idol playing her middle-aged Finnish detective. Hysterical scenes. Also, Poirot must stay in a chaotic guesthouse run by a scatterbrained woman who serves up inedible meals. She bleeds into a bowl of green beans and says, "Still it won't matter... Things are always all right if you boil them, aren't they?" Poirot replies: "I think that I shall not be in for lunch." LOL! This also has the insanely constructed mixed metaphor of Poirot's that concludes Chapter 6. As far as the mystery story goes it's intricately plotted with lots of shifting between suspects and uses as a framework Christie's trademark motif of the nearly forgotten crime in the past. In this case, actually several crimes committed by several women. For a novel writtten in 1951 with the bulk of her work behind her and only 22 more books left to go this one is a nice throwback to the masterful and devious plots she concocted in her heyday of the late 20s - mid 40s. I think it's one of the best Poirot books from her middle period. People who crab about the "unfairness" of the solution simply weren't paying attention. More than 30 years after I first read this book as a teen I clearly saw the two main clues pointed out very early in the book that would lead anyone to the correct identity of the murderer.

The large cast and the large list of suspects in this book make it quite different than most of Agatha Christie's works. It also has a very convoluted plot that is difficult to follow. In spite of that, I still give it four stars because it is written by Agatha Christie in her usual creative style. The book will certainly keep the readers guessing as they set out with Poirot to get to the bottom of an old murder case that has already been tried by the courts. A man has been convicted of killing Mrs. McGinty, but Poirot and Inspector Spence don't think he did it. When Poirot starts digging he finds ties to other much older murder cases, and it's a case of identifying people, some thirty years later. Another thing that Ms. Christie does so well is characterization, and this book is certainly no exception. I absolutely loved the muddle-headed Mrs. Summerhayes.

On a cold wintry afternoon what better way to spend the day that curling up with a great English murder mystery by the Dame of Death the peerless Agatha Christie? Mrs. McGinty's Dead was published by Wiliam Collins in London in 1952. It is the second appearance of Ariadne Oliver the apple munching murder mystery author who bears a strikiing resemblance to Agatha Christie! Their first murder mystery appearance was in "Cards on the Table."
Plot: There are a lot of characters to keep track of in this book! Mrs. McGinty is an elderly charwoman who is bludgeoned to death. A lodger named James Bently, a nondescript clerk, is arrested for the crime and condemned to hang. Yet there is something about the case that Superintendent Spence does not feel is right. He visits Hercule Poirot the elderly retired Belgian detective genius. Poirot decides to investigate the murder in an attempt to prove Bentley's innocence. Poirot discovers that Mrs. McGinty had bought a bottle of ink a few days prior to her murder. The most important clue is found in a sleazy newspaper subscribed to by the dead woman. It is an article about four women involved in notorious murders who have disappeared from view. Poirot discovers that one of these women is involved with the present McGinty murder. Much of the novel is set in Broadhinny a small English village.
There are two murders in the novel: Mrs McGinty's by a blow to the head and another one in which the victim is strangled. Poirot is operating in the same village milieu usually featuring Mrs. Jane Marple!
This is a complicated mystery but the team of Poirot and Olvier are up to solving it with aplomb. This book is one of Christie's best 1950s novels. Enjoy it and decide whodunit.

Package arrived quickly and in good shape. I am a big Agatha Christie fan and this story is a good one. Hugh Fraser reads it beautifully.