Rating: 
Summary: Another Fine Selection From the Queen of Crime
Review: When a murder is forecasted in a local paper to occur in the quaint village of Chipping Cleghorn, none (well, perhaps one) of the locals knows what to expect. As the townspeople show up at the specified time and place, most anticipate a murder game of sorts. As readers, however, we feel certain that this will be no empty announcement of murder. And indeed, murder soon bursts upon the scene.A Murder is Announced is the nineteenth Agatha Christie book that I have read, and it certainly does not disappoint. However, it does happen to be the first Christie mystery in which I've been able to correctly identify the culprit, and this overwhelming hunch, surprisingly, came to me early in the novel. Expecting to be disappointed since I thought I had solved it, I read on. Well? As it turned out, I was correct in finding the murderer. And yet Christie includes myriad details that I had no idea about, making the story more and more intriguing and revealing specifics of the murder that only the most astute reader will deduce. I thought I had solved it, but I had in fact only seen the tip of the proverbial iceberg. An aspect of the novel that I particularly enjoyed: Christie employs a (partially) omniscient third-person point of view, allowing us, for at least a short time, to follow Miss Marple's thought processes, which aren't always revealed to us in the other Marple mysteries. Though I said previously that the novel does not disappoint, I must admit that my only (very slight) quibble about the book is that some of the relatively significant characters might have been present in the storyline more often. This is a mere trifle, though. Some readers might protest Christie's use of amazing and almost-unbelievable situations and coincidences. I, for one, enjoy them--I'd rather read an ingenious mystery that's slightly far-fetched than a realistic one that's predictable. All in all, this is a fine read, and one that can be readily taken in one sitting, thanks to a plot that constantly reveals new twists and turns. I'd highly recommend it.
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