The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

By: Agatha Christie

Narrated by: Emilia Fox

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's Summary

One minute, silly Heather Babcock had been babbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure, poisoned by a deadly cocktail.

It seems likely that the cocktail was intended for the beautiful actress. But while the police fumble to find clues, Miss Marple begins to ask her own questions, because as she knows...even the most peaceful village can hide dark secrets.

©1962 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers

Bad narrator

This narrator is really not suited to Agatha Christie. She is squeaky , shrill and annoying

5 people found this helpful

Feeble Miss Marple

Any additional comments?

The Miss Marple stories are usually my favorites, but in this one Emilia Fox has voiced her as so weak and retiring that poor Miss Marple always sounds as if she's speaking from her fainting couch. By contrast, the other characters sometimes sound as if they're shouting.

3 people found this helpful

Painful American Accents

I'm sorry, I tried to like this. I finished it but I felt like my ears were bleeding. Please, of you have the talent that she had with voices, practice your accents and don't put out this rubbish.

3 people found this helpful

Excellent Agatha Christie

Emilia Fox is an excellent narrator, and she does a great job voicing the multiple characters in this charming British mystery.

3 people found this helpful

Love Agatha Christie; hate reading

Great story from Agatha Christie but the reader is awful. Everyone has to be an actor I guess

1 person found this helpful

Slow action

I am a big Agatha C fan, but some of her novels take too long to develop. This story is one of my less favorite. Everything of significance could easily have been told in 3 hours, rather than 8.

1 person found this helpful

Not the best of Miss M

I love Miss Marple and she is still splendidly deductive here, as the story drags on and on as bodies pile up, and really she has little to do. It’s a long way around to her “simple” solution. The narration is uneven. Also not the best. But at least she finds a way to rid herself of her most annoying housemaid. We applaud.

1 person found this helpful

Who doesn't like Miss Marple?

Although I prefer to hear Hugh Fraser narrating any audio book by A. Christie, Emilia Fox did an ok job once I got used to her voice. Her voice can be shrill at times. The story line and characters were interesting and I enjoyed this Miss Marple book. This book involves her nephew, Inspector Craddock.

Terrible American accents, but otherwise just ok

The narrator does a decent job, but her American accents are so awful, it is distracting. Honestly, we Americans do not talk the way she makes us sound. I only made it halfway through because her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. But the actual story is wonderful because Agatha Christie ..

mixed feelings

Things I liked about it were that, although I did guess the murderer at one point, I kept wondering about it, so the ending was a bit of a surprise. Emilia Fox does most of the female voices very well. I enjoyed the descriptions of the village.

Things I didn't like about it. Nearly all of Emilia Fox's male voices (in this and other books) are truly awful. They sound like she's talking with laryngitis while holding her nose. In this and other books it even ruins their personalities I feel. One or two of the female voices are also not well portrayed. The story was needlessly long, with too much in depth description, side-characters, and restatement. The book could and should have been 2/3 the length. It probably would have been tighter and better. And with a different narrator, I might have liked it better.