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    They Do It With Mirrors (Marple, Book 6)
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    They Do It With Mirrors (Marple, Book 6)
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    They Do It With Mirrors (Marple, Book 6)
    Audiobook5 hours

    They Do It With Mirrors (Marple, Book 6)

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Joan Hickson

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Designed to follow the new-look series of Miss Marple books for the 21st century. This edition is completed and unabridged and read by Miss Marple herself, Joan Hickson.

    Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitiation centre for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr Gilbrandsen, is less fortunate – shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building.

    Pure coincidence? Miss Marple thinks not, and vows to discover the real reason for Mr Gilbrandsen’s visit.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK Audio
    Release dateDec 11, 2006
    ISBN9780007256082
    Unavailable
    They Do It With Mirrors (Marple, Book 6)
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

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    Reviews for They Do It With Mirrors (Marple, Book 6)

    3.5/5

    632 ratings30 reviews

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    • 4/5
      At a reunion with a friend from her youth, Jane Marple learns that her friend is very worried about her sister, Carrie Louise, whom Miss Marple hasn’t seen in decades. Miss Marple agrees to accept an invitation to stay with Carrie Louise should she offer an invitation, and she soon finds herself ensconced at Stonygates, the estate where Carrie Louise and her third husband rehabilitate juvenile delinquents. Miss Marple’s presence isn’t enough to avert the murder of Carrie Louise’s stepson from her first marriage. The murder occurred while the household feared another was taking place in a locked room. One member of the household must have viewed the goings-on in the locked room as a distraction to cover the murder. But which one? The spoiled granddaughter, her sullen American husband, the daughter with a chip on her shoulder, one of the stepsons from the second marriage, or one of the many troubled inmates?I have a soft spot for this book since it was the first of Agatha Christie’s novels I read many years ago. Miss Marple uses excellent deductive reasoning in figuring out what must have happened. “They do it with mirrors.” Of course, there are also the village parallels that make Miss Marple such a discerning judge of character.
    • 3/5
      At a delinquents’ home, Jane Marple investigates an unknown threat, at the behest of an old friend.

      Watching the Joan Hickson adaptation of "They Do It With Mirrors", I was struck by how many of the notable elements – the number of underage characters, the theatrical menace – struck me as rather un-Christie. Not surprisingly, reading the book shows that – as with many stories that venture outside characters she was familiar with – things begin to fall apart. "They Do It With Mirrors" is not a Marple highlight, but it’s an easy read. The strange setting – a country house doubling as an institution for troubled youths – is not very well realised, but the perennial upper-crust characters shine through in what is (intentionally or otherwise) a light examination of changing social mores.

      Miss Marple’s hawk-eyed, gossipy personality is – of course – perfect for an amateur detective. Far more than any of the other amateurs Christie offered over the years, Jane Marple’s ruthless cunning can ultimately unravel any thread of mystery. (Unlike Poirot, I don’t think she ever gets things wrong, which can, unfortunately, make the occasional climax – "A Pocket Full of Rye", notably – seem wantonly reckless.) However, these books can often lack anything regarding a thrill – one can’t help feeling that a more active detective might have provided this. It’s no surprise that the best of the Marple novels either unite her with a co-detective (officially or narratively) or at least see the spinster knuckle down on some true investigation. There’s nothing wrong with "They Do It With Mirrors", but it’s one of the least memorable Marples.

      [The U.S. title was "Murder with Mirrors". Perhaps they just wanted a title that assured you of the book's genre? Or perhaps, like me at eight years old, finding it on the library shelf, they found "they do it with mirrors" to be giggle-worthy. Puerile sort, perhaps?]

      Marple ranking: 10th out of 14
    • 5/5
      Another pearl from Agatha Christie. As is generally the case, much better than the movie, although Joan Hickson does an excellent job as Miss Marple. Highly recommend this book to Agatha Christie fans.
    • 5/5
      Working my way through all of Christie’s Miss Marple books, I hit two fantastic installments in a row, including this. In Murder with Mirrors (or, They Do It With Mirrors) Miss Marple appears before anyone has actually died!Jane’s friend Ruth asks her to go and visit Ruth’s sister Carrie Louise because she feels sure there is something wrong in her household. Miss Marple takes her intuition seriously and heads to Stonygates, Carrie Louise’s home, where they have set up a foundation to help juvenile offenders escape a life of crime. Jane also meets Carrie Louise’s family: friend and companion Jolly, husband Lewis, daughter Mildred, step sons Alex and Steven and granddaughter Gina with her husband Walter. It isn’t long after arriving that Carrie’s other stepson Christian, on the board for the foundation, arrives unexpectedly – and is promptly murdered. Was he there on foundation business? Was it something to do with Carrie Louise’s health? There were couple things about this mystery that I really loved. First, Miss Marple is actually part of the story right and is involved from beginning to end. In previous books, I felt like she just showed up toward the end just to “solve” the mystery. Here, she is seeing everything unfold so her deductions gave the reader more. Also, this something of a locked door mystery, which I’m a fan of. Just about everyone has motive, but at the time of the murder they were all listening outside a door as Lewis had a violent confrontation with Edgar Lawson, one of the offenders. It’s possible one or more suspects could have slipped out, but how and why is where the fun begins. I thought the ultimate conclusion was excellent. The culprit made perfect sense – if you were paying attention!
    • 4/5
      A family running a psychiatric "Reform College" for juvenile offenders is thrown into a tizzy when a visiting trustee is murdered in his room, the head of the family & reform college is "attacked" by one of his "patients" behind closed doors with the family listening, and the matriarch is seemingly being poisoned.

      Two more murders take place; one of the stepsons & a youthful offender who both seem to know something they shouldn't...

      Before any of this happens Miss Marple is sent down by Ruth van Rydock (an former school chum) to make sure that their mutual former school chum, Carrie Louise (Matriarch) is safe... When Ruth last stayed w/ Carrie Louise there had been a sense of impending trouble brewing.

      The family was a definitely odd group of people, being mostly adopted: with the natural daughter being a sour, jealous woman; the Italian dramatic granddaughter being from an adopted mother (whose grandmother was a convicted murderess) & her unhappy husband (a simple man from the mid-west u.s.); an older stepson by Carrie Louise's first marriage; two other stepsons from a second marriage both in love w/ the granddaughter and wanting to marry her; and the newly arrived out-of-place ranting young man suffering from persecution & delusional syndrome.

      I liked the mystery and the story (a twist on the locked door conundrum), but I didn't take too much to the characters, so I knocked this down a star.

    • 5/5
      Nice, neat little Miss Marple mystery. Miss Marple is asked by an old friend from her school days to check up on the friend's sister, who is now a remarried widow, living at her estate. Her second husband has turned the estate into an institution for the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents. But, something odd and sinister seems to lurk, not in the dormitories, but in the manor house itself. When a trustee of the institution is murdered while staying in the house, Miss Marple's detective skills come into play to catch the murderer before he or she strikes again.
    • 4/5
      Wealthy school friend Ruth asks Miss Marple to go visit Ruth's sister Carol Anne. Also wealthy and currently married to a man determined to find a cure for criminal behavior in young men, Carol Anne has always been rather dreamy and aloof, yet she is surrounded by people who adore her. At any time there is her housekeeper, granddaughter, two step sons and various troubled young men hanging about the house, all trying to make Carol Anne comfortable and happy, even when Carol Anne's former step son, staying over just one night, winds up dead. I place this one right in the middle of the pack of Christies. Unusual plot, yet with that beautiful yet callous young woman who seems to worm her way through so many Christies.
    • 4/5
      An old school friend asks Miss Marple to visit her sister, about whom she's quite worried. When Miss Marple arrives at Stonygates, a country house with a young offenders institution attached, she is thrown into the complicated relationships of an extended family, and it isn't long before a murder is committed. Luckily, Miss Marple is at hand to prevent a possible miscarriage of justice from being carried out.I agree with one or two other reviewers that the solution was quite easy to spot, especially if one is familiar with the way Agatha Christie's mind works. It is true that she does quite well to throw in false clues and red herrings so that I wavered in my resolution more than once. Not all of the plot line is convincing, but as ever Ms Christie's novels and stories prove a diverting read that exercises those *little grey cells*.
    • 3/5
      When Miss Marple's old school friend, Ruth, asks Miss Marple to check in on Ruth's sister, Carrie Louise, at her estate, Miss Marple is only too happy to comply. Upon arrival at Stonygates, Miss Marple must agree with Ruth that something odd is in the air at the estate beyond the strangeness that results from it also being home to an institute for delinquent boys and young men. When one of Carrie Louise's relatives is murdered, it becomes even clearer that something is afoot at Stonygates and it is up to Miss Marple to figure it out.Agatha Christie is always a reliably solid read and this entry in the Miss Marple series is no exception. However, I have to admit that it didn't knock my socks off quite the same way as the prior Miss Marple. I think some of the reason that I was underwhelmed was that I figured out who did it relatively early on and thus was deprived of the usual surprise. Nonetheless, an enjoyable read.
    • 3/5
      While I enjoyed this entry in the Miss Marple series, it was just "good" not great as some of Christie's are. Given Miss Marple's oft pronounced maxim of never believe anything anyone says without confirmation, she seemed to take Lewis Serrocold's statements at face value for far too long.
    • 4/5
      This was so very nearly a perfect score. But I found the fate of the criminal and his accomplice too much of an anticlimax. Having said that, this book was an absolute pleasure to read. The characters are memorable. Miss Jane Marple appears in it a lot. We know something new about her youth, but it's not much to go with. Carrie Louise and Ruth could have been temporary props that weren't significant in Miss Marple's past.There was a certain fluidity in the narrative that I didn't find in Marple stories till now. The best example of that were when Jane Marple was being introduced to the rambling household of Carrie Louise, and also during the interrogation scenes by Inspector Curry. The interviews were far from rambling themselves. It's curious how Inspector Curry at one instant has respect for Miss Marple, but when she has solved the case, and was beginning her explanations, he immediately thought she was batty. That was the one jarring inexplicable fact of the book.The character Gina is the one who gives out the usual, obligatory, and much awaited speech about life. Immediately after the speech, she is given a forceful kiss by Alex. The author makes Alex pay dearly by making him the one who realizes the truth about the murder, how the trick was accomplished. Alex I think, died needlessly. His death is barely given the decorum of the limelight. His needless death is glossed over. Nobody really says how or when was he killed.I was dreading the title of this book; 'They Do It With Mirrors'. There's an Hercule Poirot story that has a similar title and I feared this plot was to be a rehash. Good news; there's no actual mirror in the solution of the case. This book was a joy to read. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Marple stories with impatience.
    • 4/5
      This is one of Christie's shorter novels at just over 200 pages, but it's tauter than some, and the setting is slightly more unusual - a reform home for young criminals. This is the first Miss Marple novel I have read, and she played a less prominent role than Poirot does, advising on the sidelines but not taking part in the setpiece interview scenes with the cast of suspects as does the Belgian. She is dismissed as a slightly dotty old lady by some of the younger characters, who think she can never have been young ("To youth it seems very odd to think that age was once young and pigtailed and struggled with decimals and English literature."), but naturally she later gains the respect of all. The ending was quite dramatic and unexpected (to me, anyway). One minor point that has struck me in this and a couple of her other novels is the characters in each of them who are dismissive of Italian people in general as liars who are prone to violence, which is a bit odd.
    • 3/5
      I listened to this, so once or twice when it seemed to me that things had got out of sync, it might have been me and not being able to flick back, rather than Agatha Christie actually getting it wrong. At more than one point, I felt sure that at least a day had gone by, but maybe that was me. It's possible I have either read this before or seen it on the TV, but I got the murderer correct. Right at the point the Police appear and Miss Marple says "I think they call it misdirection"; at that point I knew who, but not exactly the how of it. It's set in a large house, part of which is used by the philanthropic owners as an institute for reforming young criminals, there's a complex and somewhat unhealthy family dynamic, with a number of possible suspects for the crime. That, when coupled with a suspected poisoning, causes a long list of suspects. And the list seems to get longer, not shorter, as the murder progresses. As is usual the obvious suspect is not, the truth lies somewhere else and there's a certain amount of water muddying that goes on before it all gets sorted out. The end is slightly unexpected and mildly unsatisfactory, I do prefer the law to get their man.
    • 3/5
      Alright. She's done much better. None of the characters stand out which is unusual and (what I think goes hand in hand with that) there's no trace of the humour I've come to love in Christie's books. I knew who the murderer was as soon as the murder was committed and that never bothers me but since the characters are so bland there was nothing much left to enjoy. Still very readable but infinitely forgettable too.
    • 3/5
      Miss Marple is visiting a old friend when a murder is committed. Each member of the household (naturally) falls under suspicion. I felt the truth, when finally revealed, a little forced and unlikely but the book was well-written and enjoyable anyway.
    • 2/5
      Jane Marple’s childhood friend and schoolmate, Ruth, expresses her concern about her sister, Carrie Louise, and asks Miss Marple to go for a visit and try to find out what is happening. Carrie Louise has always been rather idealistic and she hasn’t had much luck with her marriages, though she has been left with considerable wealth and a large country estate. Miss Marple arrives to find that Carrie Louise’s current husband has helped her turn the estate into a home for delinquent boys, with a large staff of doctors, therapists and teachers. Her daughter, granddaughter and two stepsons are also currently at the estate. Her former brother-in-law, Christian Gulbrandsen, who is a director of the trust that funds the estate, arrives unexpectedly to confer with her husband, Lewis Serrocold. Before they can meet with the other directors, however, Gulbrandsen is murdered and someone has tried to poison Carrie Louise. Just what is going on?

      I love Agatha Christie and have enjoyed other Miss Marple mysteries, but this one misses the mark. It is far too convoluted, and yet very slow going despite everything that is happening. There is the central murder; the evidence of poisoning; a clearly unhinged paranoid patient who apparently is trusted enough to be Lewis Serrocold’s assistant; a possible love triangle between Carrie Louise’s granddaughter, her angry American husband, and at least one (if not both) of Carrie’s stepsons; and a juvenile delinquent who is a master lock picker and claims to have witnessed something important on one of his nocturnal jaunts away from the dormitory.

      Christie has proved that she is more than capable of juggling many storylines to build suspense and thwart the reader’s efforts to figure out the solution before the author chooses to reveal it. But rather than tight plotting with twists and turns, this novel’s storyline seemed to just meander without purpose (other than to fill pages). The final reveal was done in the form of a letter, neatly tying up all loose ends in a couple of paragraphs rather than giving us the confrontation and reveal in real time. I had been bored for much of the book and was glad it was over, but I felt that I hadn’t read a Christie novel at all, but something written by a less-skilled author to imitate the Queen of Crime.
    • 3/5
      Miss Marple was a bit more of a constant in this book than in others, which was quite nice -- I think it's best when the detective character is more of a character, like Philip Marlowe or Peter Wimsey, or whatever. In this book Miss Marple, and her childhood friend -- mostly her childhood friend, I think -- are the bigger attractions. The plot was, somehow, predictable -- either predictable to anyone, or just predictable because I'm getting far too used to Agatha Christie's writing and way of constructing a mystery.

      Carrie Louise is a sweet character, and probably the best thing about this book. I felt like the background characters were less clearly drawn than in some of these books -- nothing like the background romance that's in The Moving Finger, for example.
    • 4/5
      Yet another kookie, silly, fun Miss Marple mystery by Christie.There becomes a comforting sameness in these after a bit but thatdoes nothing to destroy the enjoyment of the story.In this one a family member is shot at a private rehabilitation center andMiss Marple must get to the bottom of it. Which she does with herusual aplomb.Again I recommend it and gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.
    • 5/5
      Could hardly fault this - straightforward good crime novel, with dollops of rather brilliantly observed character. I'd forgotten how spot-on AC could be. Of course it's all done, well, with mirrors, and smoke, and the denouement is the sort of huge surprise that's so surprising you should have guessed who, if not why; but crisply done. A Miss Marple story, btw.
    • 3/5
      He purely loves Agatha Christie, personally she's okay, but... Miss Marple though - I do like the way that lady thinks.
    • 4/5
      Classic Ms. Marple -- what's not to love?
    • 3/5
      Miss Marple goes to spend a few days with her old friend Carrie Louise, at the request of old friend's sister who is worried that something sinister is happening without being able to pin down why she feels that way. Carrie Louise's first husband set up a "good works" institution in the grounds of his estate prior to his death, which is currently being used to rehabilitate young criminals, and her third and current husband Lewis is one of the trustees of the institution. Several members of the rather complex family structure live with them, which means there are several people with a financial interest in murdering Carrie Louise. Then, of course, there are the juvenile delinquents. However, when murder happens, it's with a twist. Lewis's young assistant has a mental breakdown and has a confrontation with Lewis which climaxes with the young man shooting at him but missing, and at the same time her step-son from her first marriage is murdered elsewhere in the house by a shot which initially goes unnoticed in the immediate aftermath of the altercation between Lewis and his assistant.Lewis tells the police that earlier that day the murder victim had told him in confidence that someone was trying to poison Carrie Louise -- an obvious motive for someone to seize the opportunity to silence him while everyone was distracted, and an urgent reason for the police to find the killer before anyone else dies. It's up to Miss Marple to unpick the tangle of motives and opportunity at Stonygates.I worked out who and how almost immediately -- but so excellent was the misdirection that I thought that I must be mistaken. As usual with Christie, once you do know what happened a lot of tiny details suddenly click neatly into place.One thing I did notice was that Christie through Miss Marple has a lot to say about excusing criminal behaviour because someone had a problem childhood. It's not a problem for me, since it's in character for Miss Marple anyway, but I did feel that it was the author's viewpoint as well as the character's, and for some readers it might feel a bit too much like being lectured. But I enjoyed this book a lot -- and when you finally know the answer, the motivation feels right for that character.
    • 2/5
      My wife reads Agatha Christie. Loves them, actually. Me, I think 'And Then There Were None' and 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' are two of the greatest detective novels ever penned, but every other time I've tried a Christie I've been left a little cold.Still, I thought I'd give 'Mirrors' a go, and I liked the setting, a couple of the characters, but I guessed the murderer as the murder was taking place and spent the rest of the book thinking I had been well and truly fooled, tricked into suspecting the wrong person, only to discover that there was no twist, I was right all along.Which was a shame.The killer was the only person it COULD be.After experiencing the breathtaking revelations of the aforementioned classics, at the end of 'Mirrors' I just kind of shrugged and said 'Huh.'If this was an early Ellery Queen novel there would be a Challenge to the Reader that would say, simply: I challenge the reader to NOT solve this one.
    • 3/5
      After a plea from a worried sister, Jane Marple arrives at Stonygates to investigate into the affairs of an old school chum, Carrie Louise. Her sister doesn’t know exactly what is going on, but feels that something is very wrong at this country estate. It doesn’t take Jane long to realize she is right. With murder and poisonings happening around her, she is very worried indeed.They Do It With Mirrors is a solid offering from Agatha Christie that I enjoyed, but found a little plodding and predictable. Both the setting and the cast of characters were rather unbelievable and the book in whole felt rather dated. Usually as you read an Agatha Christie you get a strong sense of the enjoyment and relish she takes in her work, but that was missing in this book.If you are a fan of Miss Christie’s work, then I would say go ahead with this book. But if you are a first time reader I would suggest starting somewhere else.
    • 3/5
      Nice little problem for Miss Marple. Maybe not one of her best but when you know what happened it's fun to watch the misdirection!
    • 5/5
      I have a serious soft spot for this Miss Marple mystery. Our twinkly sleuth is planted in a group home for juvenile delinquents to investigate what's up with her old school friend Carrie Louise, who's married to the head of the school. The mystery itself here is nothing special -- it's a variation on a closed-room job -- but what's interesting is Christie's other not-so-hidden agenda. That is, much of the book is a kind of satire on modern methods of criminal rehabilitation. It's fascinating how many of the tedious tropes of contemporary educational/psychological theory are already in the crosshairs here, especially the assumption that self-esteem is sacred. Christie has no time whatever for this, and lets the reader know in numerous ways . . . .
    • 4/5
      An old friend of Miss Marples and a murder at Stony Gates school.
    • 4/5
      Not my favourite Miss Marple, but still an enjoyable read.
    • 3/5
      I have said previously that sometimes Miss Marple gives me the creeps, but in this book I found her character very likable. I would say it is one of the better Miss Marple mysteries I've read, however, I'm only half finished with them! I enjoyed the ending as well.
    • 3/5
      Miss Marple is asked to look into trouble at a home for juvenile delinquents, which also involves a wealthy family.