Een goochelaarstruc By Agatha Christie

They Do It with Mirrors (Miss Marple, #6), Agatha Christie

They Do It with Mirrors is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1952 under the title of Murder with Mirrors and in UK by the Collins Crime Club on 17 November that year under Christie's original title Murder with Mirrors.

Abstract: Miss Jane Marple helps pal Carrie Louise, invited by worried Sister Ruth to Stonygates, where arrested boys rehabilitate. Foundation trustee Christian is shot dead in the guest room while paranoid Edgar shoots at Carrie's husband nearby. After more deaths, Jane sees illusions. They Do It with Mirrors original Murder with Mirrors.

Characters: Miss Jane Marple, Ruth Van Rydock, Carrie Louise Serrocold, Lewis Serrocold, Gina Hudd, Walter Hudd, Mildred Strete, Juliet Bellever, Steven Restarick, Alexis Restarick, Christian Gulbrandsen, Edgar Lawson, Dr Maverick, Ernie Gregg, Inspector Curry, Detective Sergeant Lake.

عنوانها: «قتل در آینه»، «چشم‌ بندی»، «آنها با آینه این کار را میکنند»؛ نویسنده: آگاتا کریستی، تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سی ام ماه نوامبر سال 2010میلادی

عنوان: قتل در آینه، نویسنده: آگاتا کریستی، مترجم: استل فقیه، نشر تهران، میلاد‫، 1374، در 256ص؛ موضوع: داستانهای پلیسی و جنایی از نویسندگان انگلیسی - سده 20م

عنوان: چشم‌ بندی، نویسنده: آگاتا کریستی، ترجمه: مجتبی عبدالله‌ نژاد، نشر تهران، هرمس‏‫، چاپ نخست، ‏‫1388، در ‫228ص، قطع ‏‫11/5×19س‌.م.، شابک 9789643636395؛ چاپ دوم 1389؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، هرمس کارآگاه، 1393؛ در 228ص؛

آنها با آینه این کار را میکنند؛ «قتل در آینه»: یا «چشم بندی»؛ رمانی جنایی اثر «آگاتا کریستی»، و کتاب ششم از سری «خانم مارپل» است؛ کتاب حاضر نخستین بار با عنوان «قتل‌ در آینه» با ت‍رج‍م‍ه­ ی «اس‍ت‍ل‌ فقیه»‌ توسط نشر میلاد در سال 1374هجری خورشیدی منتشر شده است؛ جین مارپل که با نام خانم مارپل نیز شناخته می‌شود، یکی از شخصیت‌های داستانی نویسنده نگلیسی «آگاتا کریستی» است؛ ایشان زن مسن تنهایی است که برای تفنن به حل مسائل جنایی می‌پردازند؛ شخصیت خانم «مارپل» نخستین بار در داستان کوتاه «باشگاه سه‌ شنبه شب» که در سال 1926میلادی نوشته شد، به خوانشگران معرفی گردید؛ «مارگارت رادرفورد» و «جوان هیکسون» در بعضی از فیلم‌ها در نقش «ختنم مارپل» بازی کرده‌ اند؛ دیگر رمانهای «خانم مارپل»: «قتل در خانه ��شیش (سال 1930میلادی)»؛ «جسدی در کتابخانه (سال 1942میلادی)»؛ «انگشت متحرک (سال 1942میلادی)»؛ «اعلام یک قتل (سال 1950میلادی)»؛ «قتل با آینه (سال 1952میلادی)»؛ «جیب پر از چاودار (سال 1953میلادی)»؛ «قطار ساعت 4:50از پدینگتون (سال 1957میلادی)»؛ «آیینه سرتاسر ترک برداشت (سال 1962میلادی)»؛ «راز کارائیب (سال 1964میلادی)»؛ «در هتل برترام (سال 1965میلادی)»؛ «فرشته انتقام (سال 1971میلادی)»؛ «جنایت خفته (نگارش حدود سال 1940میلادی، چاپ در سال 1976میلادی)»؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 26/061399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی Een goochelaarstruc I love Miss Marple!

One of the few of her books, I figured out before the ending, They Do It With Mirrors, is a satisfying mystery, but I couldn't like any of the characters very well. I usually like at least a few, but this set were not so congenial somehow. Dutch; Flemish Probabil că datorită unor probleme legate de institut venise Christian Gulbrandsen la Stonygates. Așa presupuneau domnișoara Bellever și ceilalți ai casei. Și totuși, Miss Marple avea unele îndoieli.
-Nu trebuie să ne lăsăm induși în eroare de momentul în care s-a auzit împușcătura, spuse inspectorul Curry. Șmecheria asta am mai întâlnit-o și înainte, știți. Stimularea unei împușcături pentru a stabili momentul exact al crimei, pe când ceea ce se urmărea de fapt era inducerea în eroare a anchetatorilor. Mystery, Crime, Thriller Miss Marple and the Magic Trick!



But not really.
The point of this one is that not everything is what it seems. Like an illusionist's trick - they do it with mirrors.

I really did like getting more of a glimpse of Jane as a person, instead of just as the fluffy little old lady who solves mysteries. Unlike some of the other Miss Marple mysteries, though, this one doesn't have any other likable characters in it. Even the friend she goes to check up on (and potentially save) is a weird-o that's all floaty and full of ridiculous love for and trust in everyone.
Yuck. Don't you just want to give people like that a good smack upside the head?
Sorry, Jane.



The gist is that Jane goes to visit a friend that she went to school with at the request of her sister, who has a bad feeling about her sibling's situation. Carrie Louise is one of those trusting souls who sees the best in everyone and is now married to some ding-dong who's trying to rehabilitate deranged juvenile delinquents on their the estate. Of course, someone dies under odd circumstances and the chase is on to find out whodunnit.

Not the best but it's still another really fun Christie mystery.
Recommended for fans of Miss Marple.. 174 They Do It with Mirrors is one of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries. I've read most of these books or watched it as a tv series / movie in the past, but since I didn't write reviews as a teenager, I am going back to read them all again... and this time, I'll document my thoughts; it seems I can't ever just read a book without penning a review too. Must be the writer in me! Unfortunately, this was not one of my favorites from the collection. While it was easy to read, clever, and had some interesting elements, it was too simple and lacked any magical elements that I've come to see in Christie's other novels. Not magic in terms of abracadabra fantasy stuff but pop and pizzazz!

Miss Marple's friend asks her to visit another of their friends who lives several train stops away, citing something odd happening at the woman's estate. When Jane Marple arrives, she has a wonderful reunion with her friend but learns someone has been trying to poison the woman. She's been married a few times, has several daughters and step-children, grandchildren, servants, and in-laws staying at the house. All in all, there are probably 12 potential suspects, and on top of that, the home has a separate building where young men who are somewhat mad / not quite right in the head (I'm intentionally using the book's words, not intending to be politically incorrect -- this was written over 75 years ago) reside as part of the woman's philanthropy project. Which of these folks tried to poison the grand matriarch?

But it doesn't stop there... one of the family is secretly shot (on a different floor of the estate) during another intense stand-off when someone with a gun is holding the woman's husband hostage in his locked study. Phew! Got all that? I actually followed the plot, and one thing Christie is good at is repeating the details of relationships so the cast identities really stick in your head. I kept it all straight, liked the various levels of hate or love, and I found myself eager to pin the crime on two people. I ultimately guessed the proper culprit/explanation, but that might've been my memory from experiencing this one in the past. Nonetheless, it was still too light for my taste. I've come to expect intense complexity in these books, so occasionally, I suppose, there will be the unexpected.

I'll still move on to the next one in late July. I think it's about a pocketful of rye, I do believe! :) Een goochelaarstruc

Although I was certain that I had read all of the Miss Marple novels, I really cannot recall having read this before. This novel sees Miss Marple meeting up with an old friend. Ruth Van Rydock and her sister, Carrie Louise, knew Jane Marple as a young girl, when they were visiting Florence. Now Ruth is returning to America, but she confesses that she is concerned about her sister. Carrie Louise, like Ruth, has been married several times. Her latest husband is Lewis Serrocold, an idealist who runs an establishment for juvenile criminals. Ruth cannot put her finger on why she is so worried about Carrie Louise, but she asks Miss Marple to go and stay at Stonygates.

Miss Marple visits Carrie Louise as asked, where she meets the various inhabitants of the house â€" including Carrie Louise’s daughter, Mildred, her granddaughter, Gina, Gina’s American husband, her step sons, Carrie Louise’s companion, Miss Bellever, and various other members of the household. Like Ruth, Miss Marple is unable to quite put her finger on what seems wrong â€" but it is obvious that something is and, before long, there is a murder in the house.

This is an unusual setting for a Miss Marple novel; although the juvenile delinquents are very much on the edges of the storyline; in many ways leaving this a typical country house murder mystery. I enjoyed the characters and the way that Miss Marple solved the crime. It was wonderful to discover a Miss Marple novel I could not remember and made reading it even more enjoyable.

My summer of Dame Agatha Christie continues. I am aiming to read at least one of her cases a month until the end of the year because they allow me to think and still cleanse my palette in between denser reads. This time around I chose a Miss Marple case. While I enjoy Poirot’s utilization of little gray cells, Christie often withholds a key clue until the end. Of course only Poirot knows because well because readers were left clueless. Miss Marple uses her own style of deductive reasoning that reads like a cozy mystery. I decided to go back to St Mary Mead to see what Miss Marple had up her sleeve this time around.

Miss Marple meets her friend from a bygone era Ruth Van Rydock who is visiting from America. She senses something is amiss with her sister Carrie Louise Serrocold and encourages Miss Marple to pay her a visit, knowing about her detecting skills. Miss Marple had not seen Carrie Louise in nearly fifty years but offers to stay at her home Stonygates as a house guest. It is there that readers discover that something is indeed amiss but it is up to Miss Marple to discover the who, why, and how.

Carrie Louise Serrocold is an idealist even late into her life. She has no enemies and thinks the best of every person. Her marriage to Lewis Serrocold is her third, each marriage resulting in money, trust funds, stocks, and savings for her and her heirs. Someone wants her dead and attempts to get rivals for the money out of the way as well. Ruth Van Rydock noticed this a month ago, and Miss Marple could tell that Carrie Louise wasn’t a spring chicken although her spirit was the same. With step children from each marriage, there are no shortage of suspects who would love to get their hands on Mrs Serrocold’s money.

The premise for this case is a little far fetched. Stonygates was set up by the philanthropy of Carrie Louise’s first husband and her third husband operates a school for delinquent boys there. Any of these older adolescents who are not right in the head could be a suspect yet more likely it is someone in the immediate family. Miss Marple has a knack for striking up a conversation with anyone anywhere. She finds parallels between people based on her life experience and notices why certain people would do certain things. Her quiet means for detective give her credibility in the eyes of the police, who often ask her to assist on cases, as they do here. And, of course, it is Miss Marple who solves the crime.

As in many Christie cases there are three murders along the way to set up the motive for the actual crime at hand, in this case the attempt to murder Carrie Louise Serrocold in an attempt to get her money. Miss Marple steps in before it is too late, saving her friend’s life. Christie has cops in their asides write off Miss Marple as old yet admit she has a sharp mind. This is a motif in the entire series as Christie fought ageism in her writing. I find that fascinating because most of the Marple series was written during the 1950s when women in the industrialized world were settling in as housewives, content to take a backseat to their husbands. Yet, Miss Marple did not marry nor did she ever need a male figure to help her solve her cases. She might have been advancing in age but her mind proves that age is just a number.

I don’t have many Miss Marple cases left to read so I will savor them. As much as I enjoy deciphering the whodunit in Poirot mysteries, I am left more refreshed after spending time with Miss Marple. That Christie could create such distinct characters points to her breadth as a writer, proving that she is indeed the Queen of Crime. Until next time, I will wait to see whodunit.

4 stars 174 Well, you can't say this book is not well done, written by Dame Agatha at the height of her career, about her preferred crime-solver, Jane Marple. Its very tightly constructed and the dialogue is well-written, but it's not particularly memorable. It touches on Christie themes/interests. The crime takes place next to a home for what used to be called juvenile delinquents, one of whom is the assumed killer, but this gives Christie an opportunity to help us reflect on issues of rehabilitation vs. punishment and nature vs.nurture with respect to Bringing Up Children.

Christie, by this point has had several of her books produced as plays (and written plays, too) and loves the theater, so uses the opportunity (not for the first or last time) to reflect on the relationship between magic, performance, fiction and drama in life and crime. They--criminals, mystery writers, actors, playwrights, people hoping to fool others, people hoping to attract lovers, and so on--they all do it with mirrors, which is to say they use misdirection to create certain illusions.

I like it that the book opens with two elderly friends of more than fifty years are looking at themselves in the mirror as they talk with each other and reflect on who looks younger. Throughout reflections are made on women who look younger or older than they appear, through make-up, dress, other affectations.

This is a solid entry. If you wanted to read a run-of-the-mill entry in the Christie canon, this would be a good one, really well done (compared to 90% of mysteries ever written) and yet average for her. Hey, they can't all be remarkable! Agatha Christie I continue my year of progressing through the delicious Miss Marple series, buddy reading with my husband â€" while we both try to play detective along the way.

Miss Marple visits an old friend, Carrie Louise, who lives in a mansion that also houses charitable projects through a trust fund set up by a previous husband and run by a current husband, whose passion and interest lies in rehabilitating juvenile delinquents. We also meet several members of dear Carrie Louise’s family acquired through her 3 different marriages, living and visiting her in the mansion â€" and there you go, stage is set, cast introduced, all of whom becomes a suspect when the murder happens about 1/3 into the book.

Who would believe it, I, for the first time made a correct guess at an Agatha Christie murderer! But this is not the reason for the 4 star â€" this plot, I thought was not as marvellous as the others, as in, there was no one character who I could like, they all had faults and flaws and appeared very flat and one-sided, which made it less appealing to me, than Ms Christie’s usual character rich stories. The twists were only a handful too. The middle of the book became a tad boring too with the police questioning every member of the family. Not the best, but still enjoyable!

The film, however, was much better, and I thought it supplied what was lacking in the book in terms of the characters’ personalities and their relationships, and did a better job at bringing life into each person, making them more likeable! Sure, they do it with mirrors. Apparently in 1952, they could even do it by telephone. By which I refer to phoning it in, because this isn’t Christie at her best. It isn’t even Marple at her best. Still, They Do It with Mirrors is a diverting read, a quick Christie satisfier.

We begin with Miss Marple enjoying a few moments with a dear friend from boarding school days. Ruth now lives in America, but her sister lives in England, and after visiting her, Ruth has a suspicion something isn’t rightâ€"something besides the 200 criminals living on the property. Ruth’s sister Carrie Louise and her current husband are running a school for juvenile delinquents, hoping to reform the youth through applied psychology. Also in residence are Carrie Louise’s attendant, her two step-sons, her grand-daughter and her American husband, and Carrie’s widowed daughter. Ruth can’t tell Jane any concrete reason why she feels anxious about her sister, but would like Miss Marple to put her gentle investigatory skills to work.

I love the few moments we have Miss Marple’s backstory as she shares reminiscences with Ruth and Carrie Louise. Despite her fondness for the universals of human nature, Miss Marple so rarely draws stories from herselfâ€"she finds most parallels in neighbors and acquaintances. Now that I think about it, I suspect that is one of the reasons I was always so fond of Miss Marple: she’s the antithesis of the attention-seeking narcissist, an all-too-familiar figure (ahem, Poirot). Moreover, Miss Marple is self-aware and is at peace with it: “Everyone’s life has a tempo. Ruth’s was presto whereas Miss Marple’s was content to be adagio.”

The setting is a country estate in shabby condition, and revolves more around gossiping conversation than fact-finding. I didn’t note Miss Marple displaying her usual acumen, and thought she appeared to be led astray rather easily. Christie seemed to be telegraphing as well, but that is a tricky call for meâ€"I’ve read most of her works decades ago so I can never tell what I’m remembering from reading, and what I might be deciphering.

Interestingly, I don’t remember noticing Christie’s subtle humor when I was younger, but I’m enjoying her sly asides now. Here it generally plays out in discussions with the police:
“‘I shouldn’t think anybody else,’ said Miss Marple…’I just happened to be looking out of my windowâ€"at some birds.’
‘Birds?’
‘Birds.’ Miss Marple added after a moment or two: ‘I thought, perhaps, they might be siskins.’
Inspector Curry was uninterested in siskins.”

Characterization was largely straightforward, following general character stereotypes with one or two developed above the rest. Again, the police provide some amusement. Watch Dame Christie get a jab or two in:

“She looked, Inspector Curry reflected, exactly as the relict of a Canon of the Established Church should lookâ€"which was almost odd, because so few people ever did look like what they really were.

Even the tight line of her lips had an ascetic Ecclesiatical flavour. She expressed Christian Endurance, and possibly Christian Fortitude. But not, Curry thought, Christian Charity.”

The rather slow build of the beginning has a nicely murderous payoff, then followed by even more disaster. The culmination, however, seemed hasty and morally simplified and borrowed (or heralded?) another Christie ending. Overall, it was fun, if not particularly suspenseful or logical. Entertaining and quick, perfect for a break between projects.

Miss Marple gaat logeren bij een oude schoolvriendin - een rijke Amerikaanse die haar geld op een ongewone manier besteedt. Ze heeft haar landgoed veranderd in een tehuis voor jeugdige misdadigers. Als er vlak na elkaar drie moorden worden gepleegd staan de jongens van het tehuis natuurlijk onder verdenking. Gelukkig ontdekt miss Marple tijdig wat er aan de hand is: de aandacht van het publiek wordt afgeleid, net als bij een goochelaarstruc. Een goochelaarstruc