Over at the Agatha Christie website, there’s an intriguing challenge: to write a new Agatha Christie novel in instalments over the next 10 months, starting with the opening premise of “A Murder is Announced”. The rules seem a bit fiddly, and I’m not sure I’ve quite got the hang of them, but basically you have to come up with a first chapter, the murderer has to feature in the first couple of chapters, you have to know whodunnit when you start, and there’s a big entry form to download. I’ll be very interested to see what people come up with.
“A Murder is Announced” was the first Miss Marple novel to be filmed, and one of my favourites in the Christie canon. There’s a certain amount of humour to leaven the shock of the opening scene, and while Miss Marple doesn’t feature as heavily as she does in some of the other volumes, the “bone structure”, if you will, is all there.
The best of luck to all those who enter, and may Dame Agatha herself smile down on you.
