By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Lauter lovely old ladies ( original title By The Pricking of My Thumbs ) is the 59th crime novel by Agatha Christie. He first appeared in the UK in November 1968 in the Collins Crime Club and later in the same year in the U.S. at Dodd, Mead and Company. The German edition published the Scherz Verlag ( Bern, Munich, Vienna ) in 1970, translated by Edda Janus used to date.

It Tuppence Beresford determine Tommy and in her third novel.

Young people in a dangerous opponent (1922 ) and mid-forties in Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf (1941 ) Tommy and Tuppence are now aged in real time. In contrast to the other two famous protagonists of the author - Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple - who are always about the same age in all the novels of the 1920s to the 1970s.

Declaration of the novel's title

The novel's title comes from the first scene of the fourth act of William Shakespeare's Macbeth.

German translation ( Something wicked this way comes ):

Action

In the nursing home where Tommy Beresford's aunt Ada lived, the resident Mrs. Lancaster brings both the staff and the other residents with their ramblings wrong to despair. She is always talking about a poor child and something behind the fireplace. Tuppence, who hears the talk, is curious and the couple Beresford, both now in their sixties, plunge into investigations. This lead them to a child murder and other dark secrets.

People

• Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, an older retired couple
• Mrs. Lancaster, a resident of the nursing home "Sunny Hill "
• Miss Packard, director of the nursing home
• Perry couple, the residents of the house on the canal near Sutton Chancellor
• The pastor of the parish of Sutton Chancellor
• Gertrude " Nellie " Bligh, a resident of Sutton Chancellor
• Mrs. Copleigh, a resident, the rooms rented
• Philip Strong, an elderly man who lives alone near the rectory

Films

First, the novel 2005 by the French director Pascal Thomas under the title Mon petit doigt m'a dit ..., the French title of the novel was made ​​into a film for the cinema. The film stars André Dussollier and Catherine Frotin in the roles of Bélisaire and Prudence Beresford ( The authors changed the names of the main actors).

For the British television series Agatha Christie's Marple, the novel was filmed in 2006 again with Geraldine McEwan. To this end, Miss Marple was written in the script, even though they do not appear in the original novel. Tommy is played by Anthony Andrews and Tuppence by Greta Scacchi.

Important issues

Audiobooks

• 2006 Loud lovely old ladies (3 CDs): Abridged reading. Read by Stephan Schad. Director: Sven Stricker. Translated from English by Tanja trade. The Hörverlag (Munich )