Agatha Christie – Murder is Easy, With Luke Fritzwilliam
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“Murder is Easy” was the title of a murder mystery penned by Agatha Christie in 1939. It came out in America under the title “Easy to Kill.“ The book puts to work again one of the public’s not so well known crime fighters written about by Agatha Christie: Luke Fitzwilliam. Lots of interesting people travel on the British Rails. In this case Agatha Christie presents an elderly woman from the quiet village of Wychwood headed for Scotland Yard.
Miss Lavinia Pinkerton believes murder is taking place in her peaceful hometown. She also thinks it will be easy to take care of the problem once she has spoken to the authorities. Which she confides (in a rather garbled manner) to her cabin mate on the train, Luke Fitzwilliam.
After leaving the train, Miss Pinkerton unfortunately has a fatal accident, falling down an escalator. When the newspaper reports how Miss Pinkerton died in such a tragic accident on the way to make her report, Luke Fitzwilliam, a former police officer, decides he will take on the job of finding the person committing murder. So Agatha Christie sends her hero to Wychwood to scour the characters in this small village for the one resorting to murder.
Luke Fitzwilliam finds it easy to fit into life at Wychwood. He soon learns that three accidental deaths had previously occurred in the town. Another visitor to the village is Bridget Conway, a beautiful American with no apparent reason for being there. The belligerent, local Dr. Humbleby, dies suddenly, accidentally, and again mysteriously of blood poisoning from an infected cut.
The former policeman continues to have every reason to believe there is a multiple murderer among the town’s citizenry. Agatha Christie almost always wrote a romance into her mysteries. This story is no different since Fitzwilliam becomes intrigued by the lovely Miss Conway. Until he can convince himself that she is not the killer, he tries to hold his feelings in check.
The local Reverend Wake is performing more funeral services than anyone could want to do. It is becoming obvious to Fitzwilliam that Wychwood is a much more dangerous place than it appears. The doctor’s bereaved widow, Jessie Humbleby, loses touch with reality. Honoria Waynflete, the church organist, then finds her maid Amy Gibbs dead as well. Is this really a murder?
It is easy to see that Wychwood is a very dangerous place to live. Between the accidents that have happened and suicide, which seems to be on the rise, bodies are multiplying quickly. Due to his feelings for Bridget, Luke tends to downplay the fact that murder seems to have begun about the time she arrived in the village.
“Murder is Easy” has added its percentage to the more than two billion books Agatha Christie has sold worldwide, in more than 45 languages. She wrote eighty novels, short story collections, and more than a dozen plays. Agatha Christie wrote the mystery for the stage: “The Mousetrap,” which is the longest running play in the history of the theatre for good reason. Agatha Christie finds it easy to plot her mysteries with fascinating characters, providing them with intricate backgrounds.
All with possible motives to be guilty of murder, but also easy to believe each one is innocent. This is certainly the case in “Murder is Easy,” where the intricacies of the characters’ interactions, and illuminations about their pasts’ move the story forward at a rapid pace. Agatha Christie didn’t just write crime fiction, because the settings and themes of her novels cover an extraordinary breadth of place and experience. That the Agatha Christie novels are easy to read (and hard to put down) make her still one of the best-loved writers of all time.
It has been a long time since I have read a story about murder, I could say that I really like story. The mystery would kill anyone who read this and I am sure that they are going to be hooked with it once they have read one chapter. They would want to read more.
I agree this is a very well written story, not surprising given the author. It’s interesting to see how “older” stories are still able to capture suspense in written form and don’t have to rely on mediums such as television or motion pictures to tell a good story.
Such a wonderful book with a wonderful choice of words which describes the situation in an amazing way.Feel as if things are happenning right in from of you. A perfect blend of thrill and horror. It has a magical power that the moment you start reading you would be glued till you finish.
“Agatha Christie – Murder is Easy, With Luke Fritzwilliam” is my favorite book.. Which one is your favourite?
I don’t really have one specific book or story that I consider my favorite. There are too many excellently written stories to pick just one. I think Murder is Easy is an excellent book though and I can easily see why you would consider it to be your favorite.
It’s nice to see people commenting on this forum about Agatha Christie. I have to thank the Admins for hosting this sight and providing some nice insight into this type of novel. I’m sure I’ll be looking at some of the other books as well.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how many of Agatha Christie’s books were made into big screen movie productions? I know that there are several out there that were made as made for TV movies, but I can’t think of any large screen productions.
I think its a very nice question raised. Even i am very curious to know how many movies were actually made out of this wonderful book. I think awareness is something which is actually lacking in our society. We sat technology has advanced i guess not in the right direction. I think we should utilize technology to promote such a nice Novel across the world.
I found a list on yahoo of the books that were turned into movie’s. I’m not sure how accurate the list is although Yahoo is pretty reliable. I scanned through the list but I’ve only seen maybe one or two of the movies. A lot of them are more resent then I would have expected.
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800017835
Actually it has been a very long time since such a remarkable Novel was published.The whole story line is pretty impressive and more you read you get curious to an extent you would be glued till you read the very last word.
Just another random thought. Do you think that because this story was written in 1939, that some of the plot lines will be lost on today’s generation or do you think that the story was written in pretty much a universal theme? I know that in today’s day and age people tend to have shorter attention spans so advanced character development doesn’t always work too well.
Oh, and since we’re talking about different media styles, has anyone tried getting an Agatha Christie novel on either Kindel or on an audio book. I haven’t yet tried Kindel but have heard some good things about it. I’m not sure if I would prefer it over a real book though.
Anyone of you ere knows if this old classic novel has already been featured on a movie before?
I would like to know since this story is really good. People who have read this might like to saw the film.