text: This was one of Christie's later stories. Throughout her long career, she was interested in the shifting narrative and the notion of conflicting agents. Both are essentially the same thing and boil down to questions of who it is that controls or creates the situation.<br /><br />In detective fiction, the game is a matter of conflicting realities. The murderer intends to change reality to fool the detective, the writer intends to do the same to the reader. Both the reader and the detective are in similar battles to create what they see. That's why her stories often include a writer.<br /><br />In her works, she explores every combination of tricks she can think of that deal with this. Along the way, we often have bodies that are not who they seem, and times, and intended victims and such. But the real magic of the books is this notion of control. In 'Bertram's' it was literally a building.<br /><br />Here, it is a dead man. Well, sometimes that happens, but not like this. It is as if the writer were the famous Mr. Rafiel. This is particularly sweet to Marple readers who remember this same character from the 'Carribean Mystery,' which in a way was also framed by her nephew. In that story, Rafiel was the conveyor of the story to the authorities.<br /><br />The producers of this series have an almost wacky commitment to using a different creative team on each one. Sometimes it produces bland work. The 'Bertram's' episode was rather brilliantly staged. This one is the most lavish of the lot, and has an active camera. But unlike the 'Bertram's' work, it has nothing to do with the story.<br /><br />The camera moves and captures merely because it can. The 'Citizen Kane' quote at the beginning was a little too literal and blunt. This story is good, but the adapter took out some pretty critical stuff, and that irrelevant camera annoys.<br /><br />Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.