title: Mrs. McGinty's Dead: A Hercule Poirot Mystery
author: Agatha Christie
description: <i>Starred Review.</i> Who could be better reading this recording of Christie's 1952 classic than Hugh Fraser, who not only has done several audio versions of her novels but who also plays Captain Hastings in those lovely TV adaptations starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot? Fraser uses his own British accent to narrate, then switches impressively to a perfect Belgian tinge as he lets the master detective ramble on about French food, suspicious deaths and how hard it is to handle both in the cities and villages of his adopted England. When Mrs. McGinty, a sweet-natured widow, is found bludgeoned to death, suspicion falls on James Bentley, her somewhat dodgy lodger. Bentley's trial looks like a guaranteed guilty verdict, but a leading policeman is suspicious enough to ask for Poirot's help. As the story begins to explode into a complex web of lies and hidden identities, novelist Ariadne Oliver (much more like the real Christie than the cute Miss Marple) joins the hunt to find the real murderer. Even fans familiar with the novel will enjoy this classic Christie audio. <i>(Mar.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ………Agatha Christie 
   
   
   
   
   
  Prologue 
   
  The church was cold. It was October, too early for the heating to be on. 
  Outside, the sun gave a watery promise of warmth and good cheer, but 
  here within the chill grey stone there was only dampness and a sure 
  foreknowledge of winter. 
  Laura stood between Nannie, resplendent in crackling collars and cuffs, 
  and Mr. Henson, the curate. The vicar was in bed with mild influenza. Mr. 
  Henson was young and thin, with an Adam's apple and a high nasal voice. 
  Mrs. Franklin, looking frail and attractive, leant on her husband's arm. 
  He himself stood upright and grave. The birth of his second daughter 
  had not consoled him for the loss of Charles. He had wanted a son. And it 
  seemed now, from what the doctor had said, that there would not be a 
  son. . . . 
  His eyes went from Laura to the infant in Nannie's arms gurgling happily 
  to itself. 
  Two daughters . . . Of course Laura was a nice child, a dear child and, as 
  b