Oh I think I can top that one for implausibility.
In an unguarded moment I turned on the television recently and found myself
viewing a recent Miss Marple episode. However... I didn't catch the name of
the episode or notice whether it was actually based on a Christie book or not,
but does this sound just ever so slightly dodgy to anyone else here as a
climactic solution to a mystery?
From her train compartment, a woman, who happens to be an old acquaintance of
Miss Marple's, has witnessed a woman being strangled in the compartment of
another passing train. At the end of the story, Miss Marple is travelling by
train in the same compartment in which the murder has occurred, has arranged to
be accompanied by all of the murder suspects and has faked choking on a sandwich
as a ploy to get one of the group, a doctor, to come to her aid. His pose
mimics exactly that of the murderer in the earlier incident witnessed, and
indeed is again witnessed by the exact same woman travelling in the exact same
passing rain, both trains having been simultaneously halted by a pull of the
emergency cord and miraculously come to a halt with the required compartment
windows yet again serendipitously facing each other. The woman, of course
immediately recognises the doctor as the murderer she had witnessed earlier and
the case is tidily solved.
Now I ask you, is this remotely likely, or even fair?
Her books are very entertaining, but sometimes I think Christie could have been
dubbed The Queen of Implausibility rather than The Queen of Crime.
Patrick
________________________________
From: Patrick King <abrasax93@yahoo.com>
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, 15 October, 2010 3:12:50
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Implausibility
Remember the Christie story in which Poirot, after a long, involved
investigation discovers the murderer because her knees were mature and she was
trying to pass herself off as schoolgirl? CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS, wasn't it? Now,
a woman lying about her age is not proof of murder. It is not evidence of
murder. Go to a DA with information like that and they won't even bring her in
for questioning, much less sign an arrest warrant. That, to me, is implausible.
And Christie is guilty of it a lot. As are Rinehart, Queen, Gardner, the list
goes on.
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