A Murder is Announced

A Murder is Announced is the fourth and final episode of Series 1. Previous Episode: 4:50 From Paddington

Next Episode: Sleeping Murder

Transmitted: 2nd January 2005

Viewers: 7.78 million

Synopsis
The residents of Chipping Cleghorn are astonished to read an advert in the local newspaper that a murder will take place the following Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Little Paddocks, the home of Letitia Blacklock. A group gathers and at that precise moment, the lights go out and a young hotel employee, Rudi Schertz, is shot. The police assume he had placed the ad and had planned it as a robbery, but for Miss Marple it's not that obvious. She believes that the killer was likely one of the people in the room. When two of those present the evening of the murder are subsequently killed, it's left to Miss Marple to unravel a complex series of relationships and false identities, all centered around Randell Goedler, a wealthy industrialist who had died 10 years earlier.

Differences to the Original

 * The Harmons aren't included, so Miss Marple stays with Miss Murgatroyd, in this version a daughter of an old friend.
 * Mrs Easterbrook is another character omitted.
 * The Colonel is depicted as a divorced alcoholic, who was thrown out of the army for drunkenness.
 * Mrs Swettenham is a single mother and is attempting to convince Colonel Easterbrook to marry her. Her son Edmund is greatly opposed to this.
 * Edmund's romance with Phillipa is also omitted.
 * Hinch and Murgatroyd are both younger women in this novel and their romance is emphasized far more than in the original.
 * Patrick and Julia are more intimately involved than in the book.
 * Inspector Craddock is a gruff and impatient man, as well as being more aggressive in his attitude and technique of solving the murder.