A Murder Is Announced

The Chipping Cleghorn paper announces a murder at Little Paddocks, Letitia Blacklock's house, at 6:30 p.m. The lights go out, a masked man bursts in with a flashlight, shots ring out, and he's the one who dies: Rudi Scherz, a Swiss hotel clerk. Letitia ends up with a wounded ear. Letitia's friend Dora Bunner is poisoned, and Amy Murgatroyd is strangled after she realizes someone wasn't where they should have been. Phillipa and Julia turn out to be Pip and Emma, heirs to the Goedler fortune. The truth: the real Letitia died in Switzerland, and the woman living as her is her sister, Charlotte, who hides a scar under strings of pearls. She killed all three to keep the secret.

1. ChangeNo vicar, no cat

   ITV (2005) cut the Harmons and their cat. Without them, Miss Marple herself figures out the lights trick by testing a frayed cord with water.

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2. ChangeMitzi strikes first

   In the book, the killer tries to drown Mitzi. On ITV it's the other way around: Mitzi is the one who tries to kill Miss Blacklock.

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3. ChangeAn extra ending

   The Edmund and Phillipa romance is gone, and the episode ends with Belle Goedler's death, which doesn't happen in the book.

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4. Behind the scenesBook number 50

   It was billed as Christie's 50th book, with the jacket announcing that the Queen of Crime was challenging her readers for the 50th time.

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