REVIEW: Mrs. McGinty's Dead

 Mrs. McGinty's Dead
Author: Agatha Christie

This is another Agatha Christie novel that I don't have on my bookshelves. I remember owning a copy in the past.....but somewhere over the years, the book must have zagged when I zigged. It is nowhere to be found!  

Mrs. McGinty's Dead first appeared in serialized format in The Chicago Tribune's Sunday editions from October to December 1951. It was first published as a novel in 1952 in both the US and UK.  

A recurring character comes back in this story - Ariadne Oliver. She first appeared in Cards on the Table in 1936. She appears in several of Christie's short stories and novels. Ariadne is a crime fiction writer and occasionally assists Hercule Poirot with cases. She appears in one novel without Poirot (The Pale Horse), but is only a minor character. 

Because I don't own a copy of this book, I turned to Hoopla (big thanks to my local library again!), and checked out an audio book version.[HarperCollins, 2012, 6 hrs 15 minutes, narrated by Hugh Fraser].  

When this book popped up as next in order for my ongoing Agatha Christie reading challenge, I wasn't sure if I had read this story before. I owned many Agatha Christie novels for decades (nearly all of them!), but never actually read most of them. I remember owning a copy of this book with the 1980s style cover art, but never noticed until now that it was gone from my collection. As I listened to the audio book, I realized that I had read this book before, but luckily, I only remembered snippets here and there of the plot. I didn't remember the killer's identity.  

The Basics: Poirot hears of a murder case and subsequent trial and conviction of the main suspect. He's not very interested in the crime because he finds it a boring case -- just a matter of everyday violence. Then, an old acquaintance comes to see him, stating that he doesn't believe the convicted man is guilty. At that point, Poirot is on the case! 

Agatha Christie drew portions of the plot from a real case involving Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. Crippen murdered his wife and took off with his mistress, Ethel Le Neve, in 1910. The character Eva Kane is pretty obviously based on Ethel, although loosely. If you are interested in historical murder cases, I highly recommend researching Dr. Crippen.  His capture on a ship was quite the adventure. It involved the ship captain alerting police by radio that Crippen and his mistress were on board. How do police apprehend a suspect who has already escaped on board a ship bound for Canada?? Board a faster ship, of course!! Christie obviously drew from the case for this book, but changed nearly all the elements of the actual murder/investigation. I'm sure many mystery/crime writers of the time used the sensational case as a basis for novels in the decades following Crippen's trial and execution. Christie found a way to use snippets of the famous case without it being just another story mirroring Crippen's crime.

Ariadne Oliver adds some fun to this mystery. Some of her dialogue seemed to be Agatha Christie commenting on her own writing, characters and theater adaptations of her stories. 

For me, the plot of this book was just okay. Nothing spectacular. I'm glad Ariadne was in this one, otherwise I'm not so sure I would have really enjoyed this book as much as I did. Poirot complained a lot throughout the course of this story. Mostly about food. He seemed more finicky and fastidious than usual. And some of the side characters (especially one that couldn't cook proper meals and kept a messy house) seemed created just to push the detective's buttons. 

I found it interesting that the title of the book refers to a old children's game. One child played the leader, yelling out "Mrs. McGinty's Dead" then all the other children lined up would answer "How did she die?" And the leader would describe the demise of poor dead Mrs.McGinty "Down on One Knee, just like I" or "Holding her hand out, just like I" and all of the children one by one would assume the pose. The required poses become more and more silly until the final lines "Mrs. McGinty's Dead" "How did she die?" and the leader yells "LIKE THIS!!!!" and the first player in the line pushes the next child and they all fall down on the ground. Ahhh morbid children's playground games! There's nothing better! :) The lines of the game were repeated over and over during the story.  Perfect game to use as the theme for a murder mystery!  Christie used every part of the game to her advantage while working up her plot! 

Adaptations: 

Movie: In 1964, a movie version based on this novel was released. But, there are major changes to the story. Poirot is replaced by Miss Marple (Played by Margaret Rutherford). There are many plot changes, so I think the best way to put it is that the movie is only very loosely based on this book. But, it has enough similarities to count as an adaptation. I understand why they substituted Miss Marple for Poirot. The village setting for this story seems more like a Marple plot than Hercule Poirot. I have to be honest and say that I don't like the Margaret Rutherford versions of Miss Marple. They were made as comedies, don't follow the plots of the stories at all, and I really don't understand why they were made as Miss Marple movies. If they were going to go so off-script, they could have called the main character anything and just made a parody of a similar character rather than calling whatever-that-was Miss Marple. Hats off to Margaret Rutherford. She was an excellent comedic actress.....but they shouldn't have butchered a classic character like Miss Marple in that way. Just my honest opinion. 

Radio Drama: BBC Radio 4 adapted this story into an audio play in 2006.  John Moffat stars as Poirot. The episode runs about 2 hrs 22 minutes. I love these full-cast audio dramas! They even have music and sound effects! I highly recommend them!! BBC Radio 4 adapted many of Christie's novels. 

Poirot television series: The long-running television series starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot adapted this novel into an episode in 2008 [Season 11, Episode 1]  Some characters are left out and there are some rather major plot changes. But, I enjoyed the episode! I loved how David Suchet really played up Poirot's disgust at bad food and poor housekeeping. :) It made the episode fun to watch. 

French Television: Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie had an episode based on this story in 2015. This show always makes some pretty large changes to Christie's stories, including relocating to France and having French investigators. But, the episodes are very enjoyable to watch. If your local library has Kanopy, you can watch this show with English subtitles. 

 

I wish they still did serialized releases or magazine publication like they did with so many of Christie's novels, novellas and short stories (including this one).  I think the last serialized story I read was The Green Mile by Stephen King. I loved buying those tiny paperbacks each time a new one came out. I'd love to see the presentation and lay out of this story's first publication in The Chicago Tribune. I would have read each week without fail! I can just imagine people sitting at their tables over the newspaper and trying to guess what the ending would be. I hope they were all better guessers than I am. I'm usually wrong! This is why I work in social services and not as a detective!! 

 On to the next!!