The Moving Finger

by Agatha Christie

Jun 12, 2007 Colin Harvey

The Moving Finger is technically a Miss Marple novel, written in the same year as Why Didn't They Ask Evans? But it's a very different novel.

Written in the same year as Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? The Moving Finger is a very different crime novel, showing Christie’s astonishing powers of inventiveness at their peak.

Jerry Barton is recovering from an air-crash that has effectively ended his flying career. When his doctor suggests a change of scenery to aid his convalescence, Jerry and his twin sister Joanna let a cottage in the quiet market town of Lymstock. Nothing ever happens in Lymstock, they are assured, but a poison pen letter to Jerry piques his curiosity, and when they start to talk to their neighbours about it, they find that they are not the only ones to have been the recipient of the anonymous writer’s spite.

Soon the tongues are wagging; “there’s no smoke without fire,” the gossips keep saying. And the police are worried that sooner or later the letters will find a target who will react violently.

When a local woman commits suicide, the authority’s worst fears seem to have been realized, but rather than marking the end of the affair, the woman’s death sparks a train of unexpected events, not the least unexpected that Jerry finds himself asking a little old lady who is staying at the vicarage for assistance…

At this stage of her career Christie was still creating genuine protagonists rather than the routine shuffling of stock characters that she often resorted to later on in her career, and the formidable Mrs. Dane Calthrop, the effete Mr. Pye and the fiercely idealistic Dr. Owen Griffiths for whom Joanna suddenly develops an unexpected fascination are keenly drawn and have the stamp of greater realism than some of her other works.

While this is technically a Miss Marple novel, The Moving Finger is really Jerry Barton’s novel, written from his point of view, and with all the vigour that the reader would expect from an otherwise healthy young man.

What lifts The Moving Finger above every other Miss Marple novel, and most of Christie’s others, is that for once, her obligatory (and sometimes rather unconvincing) romantic sub-plot -- usually observed from an old man (Poirot) or Miss Marple’s perspective – takes centre-stage, in the form of a retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale. More to the point, it has genuine bearing on the novel’s denouement, and Jerry’s whirlwind romancing of his love makes The Moving Finger linger long in the reader’s memory long after Christie’s more famous mysteries have faded.

The copyright of the article The Moving Finger in American Fiction is owned by Colin Harvey. Permission to republish The Moving Finger in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Cover for The Moving Finger

Comments

May 14, 2008 6:12 PM

Guest :

Why Didn't They Ask Evans was published in 1934; The Moving Finger came at least eight years later. Why does the author say the books were written the same year? There is no evidence that Christie wrote The Moving Finger in 1933 or 1934 and postponed publication till 1942.

May 14, 2008 9:36 PM

Colin Harvey :

That's a good question.

I have seen copyright quoted as 1942, including my copy.

However, I have also seen in two different copies -- including my copy of The Moving Finger "First published by William Collins & Son Co. Ltd 1934."

It was customary at that time for the copyright to be held by first publisher for a number of years -- up to 27 or even 28. For whatever reason, copyright presumably reverted to the author much earlier, after only 8 years.

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