The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Hollywood comes to St Mary Mead with its own weather system. Marina Gregg, a faded film star, is in the village for a local shoot, and the reception held in her honour brings out every autograph hunter within reach. The excitement is the kind that makes a village feel important for a week, and it masks something far more serious than bad manners. One of the guests, a gushing and pushy fan, is poisoned by a drink meant for the actress.

But Marina survives her own close call, and the village does not get off so lightly. A local woman dies in her place, and suddenly the gossip columns and the parish pump are telling the same story. The dead woman is a local, known to everyone and interesting to no one, which is exactly why the case is hard. The village talk is full of names and half-truths, most of it aimed at the glamorous stranger, because it is easier to blame Hollywood than to look at your neighbours. Miss Marple sorts the chatter from the fact, which in a village means listening to an awful lot of chatter. The truth, when it arrives, has nothing to do with stardom and everything to do with the secrets that were here long before the cameras.

Agatha Christie wrote it, and the records name no director. Joan Hickson is Miss Marple, keeping her own counsel while the film crew and the villagers circle one another. The supporting cast is the drama itself: the star's household, the film people, and the residents of St Mary Mead caught between fascination and suspicion. The film shoot gives the story its shine, but the real business is old-fashioned village business: who was where and who said what, and which grudge was worth killing over. It went out on 27 December 1992.

A faded star and a poisoned drink, and a village full of opinions about both. The glamour is only the wrapping. The murder is strictly local, and Miss Marple unwraps it in her own time. The truth has been waiting in St Mary Mead all along, as it usually is.