They Do It with Mirrors

A Miss Marple Mystery

By: Agatha Christie

Narrated by: Emilia Fox

Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

In Agatha Christie’s They Do It with Mirrors, the indomitable Miss Marple investigates some rather deadly doings at a rehabilitation center for delinquents.

Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in Stoneygates, a rehabilitation center for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when someone shoots at the administrator. Although he is not injured, a mysterious visitor is less fortunate—shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building.

Pure coincidence? Miss Marple thinks not, and must use all her cunning to solve the riddle of the stranger’s visit … and his murder.

©1952 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

Just buy it, it's an A. Christie book!!

No one is worthy to critique such a master of her craft unless one has achieved her level. It's like trying to review a Brand, Rinehart, or Sayers, and not to be sexist i'll add a Doyle, and a Wilde. They're brilliance is established.
If you really must decide if this book is worth your credit, i'll attempt a review for you.
This is one of her 4 (or should I say 5 since there is a pair) great sleuth series. Although Miss Marple never "solves" a case by herself, she relies on her ability to 'see' a person for who they are so that she gently nudges others in the right direction to find the truth. Like all of Chrisities stories the twists are numerous yet once unraveled make perfect sense.
Her friend is in danger but just what that danger is or from where it comes is the mystery. In this tale, a slight of hand and misdirection of perception co-mingle with the usual complexity of relationships and no short amount of possible suspects to create an exciting page turner. The real surprise is the truth of the crime, which is...ha like I'd reveal that gem. It's a mystery so figure it out.
Enjoy this book, as I already know you'll buy it, and don't forget to read/listen to her 81 other gifts to the literary world.
A. Szkola
Reader every fictional genre (even zombie and sci-fi), since you can't determine what you like unless you read it. FYI I do not like romance and westerns.

fairly good story, narration lacking

I've read enough Agatha Christie now to more or less put her mysteries into one of three categories: Marvelous, Standard, Subpar. This one is Standard. I enjoyed it even if it wasn't one of my favorites. However, I would have enjoyed it more with a different narrator. Emilia Fox just isn't good with male voices. I think her Miss Marple is excellent though, and her female voices are Ok. But I was trying to imagine reading the male parts rather than hearing her speak them. I think I would have like those characters a lot better.

Solid story and performance

Emilia Fox is a great performer and narrator. The story was interesting and had enough layers to be interesting.

A good Ms. Marple mystery, good narration by Fox

I enjoyed this Ms. Marple book, although I guessed at the solution pretty early on. Emilia Fox did a good job with the voices, although as an American living in the South, her Texas accent for Wally sometimes wavered into sounding almost British.

Enjoyable

I'm a devotee of Miss Marple, so I definitely enjoyed the story. As for the narration, I always enjoy Emilia Fox's portrayal of Miss Marple. However her attempt at Wally's American southern accent caused me to cringe on multiple occasions. As a southerner myself, his accent often sounded all wrong. Please never attempt a strong southern accent again!

Love Agatha Christie!

Love the story, but have to despair of the dreadful American accent given to Wally by the narrator. She did fine on the American women and the other accents , but awful on him.

Wonderful as always

Agatha Christie is a wonderful author. I can and do listen and read her books over and over. If you are looking for easy reads look no further

Great story, so-so narration...

OK, I seriously mean no disrespect to Emilia Fox, but I have the same issue here with her that I did in Murder in Mesopotamia with her attempt at Monsieur H.Poirot. I really don’t understand why she continually chooses to take on these projects that require accents that are so clearly not within her capability.
Now, I am a voice over actor and I know how difficult it is to narrate an audiobook that has a lot of characters with different accents so I do give her props for trying her best. I just have to say it really aggravated me at times because it was just so damn distracting! And then of course, I had to keep rewinding through the terrible parts because I was so focused on how awful the accents were! I am personally just not really a fan of Emila's vocal quality as I find it a bit shrill (the character of Edgar Lawson was pretty grating). But the worst were the characters of Christian Gulbrandsen (who is I just supposed to be German? I think? Doesn't sound like any German accent I've ever heard) but it wasn't the worst, oh no. By far the worst character was OMG FREAKING WALTER HUDD!!!!!! DUUUUDE.
I'm sorry but I have NEVER in my life heard someone completely BUTCHER a southern accent like that before. It was like nails on chalkboard to me. It was just really really bad.
I just wish that actors who choose to narrate audiobooks would do their homework and at least learn the basics of the accent they have to read for long periods of time in. I mean, come on Emelia! You're an actor, a GOOD actor! Do your job! Please!
Aside from that, this was another solid Christie as usual. I'm just really bummed I own this now bc it will be tough to relisten to it.
Seriously, it's times like these that I really REALLY miss and appreciate Mr. Hugh Fraser. <3

One small request

The story was written by the brilliant Dame Christie so that needn’t be reviewed by this humble reader.

The performance, while overall absolutely fantastic, contains a few understandable mistakes that a British narrator performing 3 distinct American characters would make. Though gamely attempted the mid-western American accent is geographically incorrect. But that’s neither here nor there as an American narrator would almost certainly perform a cockney accent instead of a Manchester one or unforgivably over flatten and mangle a character from Yorkshire.

No. My one small request is for Brits to please stop incessantly pronouncing idea as ‘idear’ when using an American accent. Yes it is done but among the many, many people I’ve spoken to who hail from all over this vast land the number of people who have actually used that mispronunciation can be counted on my hands. Please cease if you can. Thank you.

Predictable story hinders an overall interesting backdrop

One of the better marple stories in terms of the backdrop and set of support cast. But the mystery was very predictable and that it took so much time was baffling. Still a very enjoyable listen. Also one of Emilia fox’s better performance