Mrs McGinty's Dead is a mystery novel by English writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1952 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 3 March the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.50

Robert Barnard: "This village murder begins among the rural proletariat (cf. Death by Drowning in The Thirteen Problems and the excellent London working-class woman in The Hollow), but after a time it moves toward the better-spoken classes. Poirot suffers in a vividly awful country guesthouse in order to get in with the community and rescue a rather unsatisfactory young man from the gallows. Highly ingenious – at this point she is still able to vary the tricks she plays, not repeat them."

References to other works

  • When Superintendent Spence arrives to see Poirot, the detective reacts to him as though it has been many years since their last case together, Taken at the Flood, the previous novel, set in 1946, six years previously. Chronologies are difficult to construct, especially with Poirot's career.
  • Poirot refers in the first chapter to a case in which the resemblance between his client and a soap manufacturer proved significant, "The Nemean Lion", first published in the Strand Magazine in November 1939 and later collected in The Labours of Hercules (1947).
  • Mrs Oliver, who is a very amiable caricature of Agatha Christie herself, refers to gaffes in her books. In chapter 12, she mentions one of her novels, (Death in the Clouds) in which she had made a blowpipe one foot long, instead of six.
  • "Evelyn Hope” is the name of a poem by Robert Browning that is quoted in the course of the novel. In Taken at the Flood Christie had made a character take the alias of "Enoch Arden", a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Adaptations

Film

The novel was adapted by MGM in 1964 as the film Murder Most Foul. However, in an unusual move, the character of Poirot was replaced with Miss Marple (portrayed by Margaret Rutherford), who comes onto the case as a juror in the trial of the lodger who is accused of the murder. She is the only juror to believe the lodger innocent, hanging the jury. The judge rules a mistrial and arranges for a retrial in a week, giving Miss Marple seven days to solve the case.

The film is only loosely based on the novel, altering almost all the characters, subplots, names, and deaths. The motive for the murder remains the same, but the killer's name and role are changed. The film's tone is more playful and light-hearted than the novel, as was characteristic of Rutherford's Christie film adaptations.

Television

British adaptation

A television programme was produced in 2007 with David Suchet as Poirot in the ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot, first broadcast on 14 September 2008. It was directed by Ashley Pearce, who also directed Appointment with Death and Three Act Tragedy for the ITV series. It also starred Zoë Wanamaker returning as Ariadne Oliver (who first appeared in Cards on the Table) and Richard Hope as Superintendent Spence (who first appeared in Taken at the Flood), respectively. The adaptation is reasonably faithful to the novel, with the deletion of a few characters and omitting two of the women from the newspaper article – only focusing on Lily Gamboll and Eva Kane.

The characters of Deirdre Henderson and Maude Williams are merged in the film. Thus it is Maude Williams, the estate agents' secretary (with dark hair instead of blonde), who is in love with Bentley and helps Poirot throughout his investigation. Maude and Bentley are reunited by Poirot in the final scene. Also, Dr Rendall's secret is not that he is suspected of killing his first wife, but of mercy killing terminally ill patients. It is Mrs Rendall, rather than her husband, who makes an attempt on Poirot's life.

French adaptation

The novel was adapted as a 2015 episode of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie.

Radio

Mrs McGinty's Dead was adapted for radio by Michael Bakewell for BBC Radio 4 in 2006, featuring John Moffatt as Poirot.

Publication history

right|thumb|Dustjacket illustration of the UK First Edition (Book was first published in the US)

  • 1952, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), February 1952, Hardback, 243 pp
  • 1952, Collins Crime Club (London), 3 March 1952, Hardback, 192 pp
  • 1952, Walter J. Black (Detective Book Club), 180 pp (Dated 1951)
  • 1953, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 181 pp
  • 1957, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 188 pp
  • 1970, Pan Books, Paperback, 191 pp
  • 1988, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover,
  • 2008, HarperCollins; Facsimile edition, Hardcover,

In the US, the novel was serialised in the Chicago Tribune in its Sunday edition in thirteen parts from 7 October to 30 December 1951 under the title of Blood Will Tell.

References

  • Mrs McGinty's Dead at the official Agatha Christie website