A Murder Mystery by Agatha Christie
A Thriller as well as a puzzler, you'll find yourself asking
not only who, but why, and then trying to pick out
one of the many answers you will come up with . . .
"The impact is tremendous . . ."- London Evening News
Few mysteries have as abrupt, or as startling, an opening as Agatha Christie’s masterpiece of murder stories, "The Unexpected Guest." On a fog-shrouded night in southern Wales, a man clambers up to the drawing room doors of an estate, flashlight in hand. He pushes the doors open and enters.
Inside is a man in a wheelchair, slumped dead with a fresh bullet wound in his temple. Beside him is a lovely young woman who identifies herself as his wife. She holds a revolver, which she admits she used to kill her husband.
But hold it right there: The mystery isn’t solved so easily. Many a loose end is at hand several of which are uncovered by Starkwedder, the unexpected guest, and the rest by the investigating local police.
What really gets the ball rolling in the Lazy Susan’s current production of this 1958 play is the intense curiosity that Starkwedder shows in the circumstances surrounding the murder. He begins to interrogate the wife, Laura Warwick into the nature of her decision to shoot her spouse through the head.
After hearing about Warwick’s cruel, unfeeling nature, and Laura’s admission that she’s "hated him for years," he decides to manufacture evidence to throw police off the trail. Laura’s warning to him to avoid any involvement is only the first in a number of brilliant red herrings designed to keep those close within Warwick’s sphere and audience members as well guessing right up till the end.
Christie’s skill is evident in her development and exposition of concurrent crimes the murder itself, and a traffic accident from years earlier in which Warwick killed a small boy, and which may very well form the genesis for a motive.
The Lazy Susan Cast play this "Guest" close to the vest, exploiting the fact that nothing is as it appears. In fact, the great fun of "The Unexpected Guest" is letting yourself be led around by the nose by a master storyteller.
Christie doesn’t try to posit every member of the Warwick household as a possible suspect; she simply leaves each character’s story full of holes, providing just enough detail to make us suspect nearly everyone.
This one is classic Agatha Christie Murder Mystery! Don't miss it!