The Moving Finger

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"The Moving Finger" is also a short story by Stephen King.

The Moving Finger (published in 1934) is an Agatha Christie mystery novel featuring the elderly detective Miss Marple. It takes its name from Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Jerry and Joanna Burton, disaffected siblings from London society, take a country house in idyllic Lymstock so that Jerry can rest from injuries received in a plane accident. They are just getting to know the town's strange cast of characters when an anonymous letter arrives, rudely accusing the two of living in sin. They quickly discover that these letters have been recently circulating around town, indiscriminate and completely inaccurate. But when a suicide is committed over the content of one of them, things flare up.

Scotland Yard sends someone to investigate, but progress is slow until a townsperson calls up an expert of her own, who turns out to be Miss Marple. During the journey of the book, the Burtons end up not only finding the answers, but themselves.

The book's title, The Moving Finger, plays twice. The first is how the accusatory letters point blame from one town member to another, the second is from the addressing of the letter, which the Scotland Yard agent determines the envelopes were all "typed by someone using one finger" in order to avoid a recognizable 'touch.'

[edit] Christie's thoughts

"I find that another one [book] I am really pleased with is The Moving Finger. It is a great test to reread what one has written some seventeen or eighteen years before. One's view changes. Some do not stand the test of time, others do." - Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, 1977.

[edit] Film versions

Adapted for television in 1985 with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Re-made in 2006 with Geraldine McEwan as Marple.

Agatha Christie
Detectives: Hercule Poirot \| Miss Marple \| Tommy and Tuppence \| Ariadne Oliver \| Arthur Hastings \| Superintendent Battle \| Chief Inspector Japp \| Parker Pyne
Novels: The Mysterious Affair at Styles \| The Secret Adversary \| Murder on the Links \| The Man in the Brown Suit \| The Secret of Chimneys \| The Murder of Roger Ackroyd \| The Big Four \| The Mystery of the Blue Train \| The Seven Dials Mystery \| The Murder at the Vicarage \| The Sittaford Mystery \| Peril at End House \| Lord Edgware Dies \| Murder on the Orient Express \| Three Act Tragedy \| Why Didn't They Ask Evans? \| Death in the Clouds \| The A.B.C. Murders \| Murder in Mesopotamia \| Cards on the Table \| Death on the Nile \| Dumb Witness \| Appointment with Death \| And Then There Were None \| Murder is Easy \| Hercule Poirot's Christmas \| Sad Cypress \| Evil Under the Sun \| N or M? \| One, Two, Buckle My Shoe \| The Body in the Library \| Five Little Pigs \| The Moving Finger \| Towards Zero \| Sparkling Cyanide \| Death Comes as the End \| The Hollow \| Taken at the Flood \| Crooked House \| A Murder is Announced \| They Came to Baghdad \| Mrs McGinty's Dead \| They Do It with Mirrors \| A Pocket Full of Rye \| After the Funeral \| Hickory Dickory Dock \| Destination Unknown \| Dead Man's Folly \| 4.50 From Paddington \| Ordeal by Innocence \| Cat Among the Pigeons \| The Pale Horse \| The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side \| The Clocks \| A Caribbean Mystery \| At Bertram's Hotel \| Third Girl \| Endless Night \| By The Pricking of My Thumbs \| Hallowe'en Party \| Passenger to Frankfurt \| Nemesis \| Elephants Can Remember \| Postern of Fate \| Curtain \| Sleeping Murder
as Mary Westmacott: Giant's Bread \| Unfinished Portrait \| Absent in the Spring \| The Rose and the Yew Tree \| A Daughter's a Daughter \| The Burden
Short story collections: Poirot Investigates \| Partners in Crime \| The Mysterious Mr. Quin \| The Hound of Death \| The Thirteen Problems \| Parker Pyne Investigates \| The Listerdale Mystery \| Murder in the Mews \| The Regatta Mystery \| The Labours of Hercules \| Poirot's Early Cases \| The Harlequin Tea Set
Plays: Akhnaton \| The Mousetrap \| Witness for the Prosecution \| Verdict \| Rule of Three \| Fiddlers Three

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Categories: 1934 novels | Miss Marple novels | Mystery novel stubs