The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

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The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Written by:	Agatha Christie
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
Genre(s):	Mystery Literature
Series:	Miss Marple
Preceded by:	4.50 from Paddington
Followed by:	A Caribbean Mystery
First published:	November 12, 1962
More Information
The Wiki Rule:	Agatha Christie Wiki

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side is a Miss Marple novel by Agatha Christie. It was first published in 1962.

When Miss Marple suffers a fall, a neighbor named Heather Braddock takes care of her. She gushes about actress Marina Gregg, who is moving into the neighborhood. Marina and her new husband Jason Rudd throw a party to mark the occasion and celebrate St. John Ambulance. Marina at the party accidentally spills Heather's drink when they meet, offering her own as an apology. A few minutes later, Heather falls down dead. The drink was poisoned, just as Marina was about to have it.

Miss Marple is technically out of commission, but she takes to solving the mystery as friends and acquaintances relate details to her. Who would want to poison Marina? And what skeletons in her closet would motivate the killer?

Tropes used in The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side include:

• An Aesop: Courtesy of the Reveal at. the end: quarantines exist for a reason! If Heather had just stayed in bed, per her doctor's orders, Marina's baby likely would have been born healthy and she would not have killed Heather all those years later.
• All Abusers Are Male: Subverted with Jason and Marina, if you read between the lines. The cops do investigate him to see if he slipped the drugs into her daiquiri but he has an alibi, and Jason is clearly devoted to Marina. Given her murder spree and the haunted look in his eyes when Miss Marple confronts him, she infers that Jason was more of a caretaker to Marina and had to manage her constant mood swings. It says something that he may have overdosed her rather than turning her into the cops, since he lacked proof that she had killed Heather, Zielinsky, or Giuseppe the butler on purpose.
• Ambiguous Disorder: On-camera, Marina Gregg is professional and charming. Off-camera, her managers and family know that she is prone to mood swings and can be cruel, forcing them to keep an eye on her. It's never confirmed if it was the stress of being an actress, having a sick baby, or any mental illness.
• Asshole Victim: Zigzagged with Heather. While she could be a bit talkative and insensitive, there is the fact that her Establishing Character Moment is helping Miss Marple recover from a bad fall. Miss Marple herself says that the killer's grief of what happened to her baby did not justify poisoning a woman who didn't know any better.
• Bittersweet Ending: Before Miss Marple can bring Heather's killer and Marina's would-be assassin to justice, she finds out Marina has died of an overdose. She suspects but cannot prove that her husband Jason arranged the overdose after finding out how far Marina would go to cover up her murder of Heather, before she could turn the town into a bloodbath. Jason will neither confirm or deny it, but there's a haunted look in his eyes as he talks about how much Marina has suffered. Miss Marple lets him go, because she believed his intentions were to save the town from his wife.
• Chekhov's Gun: Heather Braddock told anyone she knew about how Marina was her favorite actor, and went to get an autograph from her while sick in Bermuda. She was sick with German measles, aka rubella, which is highly contagious. Marina was pregnant at the time, and due to contracting measles, her baby was born with birth defects. When Heather retold the story, Marina realized that Heather accidentally made her sick, and killed her in a crime of passion.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Ella Zielinsky goes around making anonymous phone calls accusing random people of killing Heather. People realized it was her because the caller was sneezing, and she has hay fever. Marina ends up killing her in turn when she gets that phone call.
  • Miss Marple deduces that if Marina had taken the time to walk away from that fateful conversation, she likely wouldn't have poisoned her drink and then made up an excuse to give it to Heather. Instead, when she realized Heather was indirectly responsible for her baby being born with birth defects, she committed a crime of passion. The rest of the book was her starting a murder spree to cover up that crime.
• Don't Ask, Just Run: Miss Marple sends Gladys away on vacation, ordering her not to tell anyone where she's going. It's because Gladys saw something at the party, and the killer might take the initiative to shut her up.
• Everyone Has Standards: Margot, revealed to be one of Marina's adopted and abandoned children, was at the party. When questioned, she says that she may hate her adoptive mother for treating her like a discarded toy, but she didn't want to kill Marina. Margot attended and hoped that Marina would recognize her, and that maybe they could talk. Marina didn't even look at her, convincing Margot there was nothing to save.
• Never Suicide: Discussed; Miss Marple doesn't know for certain if Marina killed herself after realizing that she was going to get investigated for murdering Heather, or if her husband did the deed and arranged for the overdose. She suspects it was the latter, given that Marina had no signs of stopping.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: Downplayed with Marina. She remains professional when talking with fans who praise her performance, but her adoptive children says that she uses people like things. Marina adopted them but sent them away after becoming pregnant with her own baby. The trope ends up played straight when Miss Marple figures out that Marina poisoned Heather and sent the cops on a Wild Goose Chase, before killing Ella and Giuseppe.
• Shout-Out: The novel's title comes from the poem "The Lady of Shallott," which Miss Bantry quotes to Miss Marple after witnessing the murder at the party.