They Do It With Mirrors has to do with a lot of illusions. Not just the story line or the murder, but the behaviors and personalities of characters. It’s one of the most insightful Agatha Christie books I have come across.
Title: They Do It With Mirrors
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Crime
Publication Date: January 1, 1952
Review Date: January 13, 2020 // June 01, 2026
Number of Pages: 224 (paperback)
My Rating: 4.5/5
Buy here:
Book Blurb of They Do It With Mirrors:
A man is shot at in a juvenile reform home – but someone else dies …
Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitation centre for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr Gulbrandsen, is less fortunate – shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building.
Pure coincidence? Miss Marple thinks not, and vows to discover the real reason for Mr Gulbrandsen’s visit.
Book Review of They Do It With Mirrors:
As you can probably guess from the title, this book has to do with a lot of illusions. Not just the story line or the murder, but the behaviors and personalities of characters. It’s one of the most insightful Christie books I have come across.
The more I read Christie, the more nuances I pick up on in individual books. She sometimes themes her books in a particular way. The theme here, according to me, is illusions.
This story also provides an insight into psychology and psychiatry of the times. How mental health was viewed, the stands taken by the medical community, what psychiatry seemed to believe at the time, was very illuminating to someone reading this in the current era.
Which made me realize there’s a lot of insights into class and nationality based prejudice as well in that period of time, that Christie so neatly portrays – not just here but many other books. Here though, there is more commentary on these things in terms of how the characters are with each other as well.
Do I recommend They Do It With Mirrors by Agatha Christie?
The story itself is a murder mystery, as we expect from the Queen of Crime. It’s about a very blended family, disparate characters, juvenile delinquents, psychiatry, plays and illusions, psychological theories of that time, a trust to help the aforementioned delinquents, and a lot of money. If these are things that interest you, you’ll love this book!
Looking at many of the recent reviews on the site, so many of them are about Agatha Christie books. This is, in part, due to the fact that I started my Agatha Christie Reading challenge, and hence have been reading more of those. I suppose I should start interspersing them with books by other authors. So many books in the world, not enough time to read them all!
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