A Murder Is Announced
Acceptable with guidance. Age: 14+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
Miss Marple at her best, and the moral line is firm. Murder isn't a game, as one grieving woman says. The killer is drawn as a weak, kindly person whom a lie and a grudge slowly ruin, which is a true picture of how sin grows. She is caught and arrested. The reservation is three killings, mild swearing, and the scorn the English characters show a refugee cook.
For parents
Read aloud from 13 if you wish; a teen can read it alone from 14. Two women friends share a cottage. The text calls them friends and says no more, though some modern critics read them as a couple and the 2005 TV version adds a lesbian relationship. Ask how one lie led to three deaths.