Maya Corrigan, author of A Parfait Crime, a Five-Ingredients mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us a bit about how an amateur production’s rehearsals of The Mousetrap in A Parfait Crime leads to discovering and solving a crime in the novel.

Welcome, Maya. I’ll turn the floor over to you –

Many readers know that Agatha Christie is the bestselling fiction writer of all time. She has also broken records as a dramatist. Her play, THE MOUSETRAP, is the longest running stage production in the world . . . ever. It opened in 1952 and is still packing in audiences. It’s also a staple of amateur and community theaters, like the one in my latest book. Rehearsals for The Mousetrap are at the center of my 9th Five-Ingredient Mystery, A PARFAIT CRIME.

My series features café manager Val and her livewire grandfather solving murders in a town along the Chesapeake Bay. Granddad took up cooking in the first book of the series, but he wouldn’t try any dish with more than five ingredients. He gives the series its name. Each book has five suspects, five clues, and Granddad’s five-ingredient recipes.

In the latest installment Val joins her grandfather in rehearsals, replacing cast member Jane, who died in an arson fire. Sweet Jane made afternoon tea with scones and parfait when the rehearsals took place at her house, and Granddad continues that tradition. After skeletal remains are found in Jane’s freezer, Val and Granddad must solve a crime with as many layers as a parfait and with echoes of the crimes in THE MOUSETRAP. When their search for a killer takes them to an upscale spa, they learn that Jane wasn’t the only one with secrets. 

I’ve seen Christie’s play twice in London and remember its scary moments and its stunning ending. To avoid spoiling that experience for anyone who hasn’t yet seen the play, I’ve revealed the minimum about the plot and nothing about Christie’s culprit in the scenes where my characters rehearse the play and try to solve the murder of a cast member.

Christie enjoyed writing plays more than novels. She once said, “I find that writing plays is much more fun than writing books.” With plays she could avoid creating long descriptions of places and people. Of her own plays, her favorite was WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION. Most critics agree that it’s her best play.

THE MOUSETRAP has a storied history. It began as a radio play, commissioned as a gift for the 80th birthday of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother. The members of the royal family have been great fans of Agatha Christie’s work. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh attended the 50th anniversary performance of The Mousetrap in 2002.

Christie expanded the plot of her radio play into a long story entitled “Three Blind Mice,” on which THE MOUSETRAP is based. She and her heirs would not allow the story to be published in the UK though it’s available in the US in a book called THREE BLIND MICE AND OTHER STORIES. I don’t recommend reading it if you haven’t seen the play. The surprise ending will be spoiled for you. As Christie specified, no film version of THE MOUSETRAP may be made until the play’s London run is over.    

A real crime, “ripped from the headlines,” inspired the plot of THE MOUSETRAP and a real crime occurred during one performance. When the play was presented at Wormwood Scrubs Prison in 1959, two inmates escaped during the exciting second act. The guards were apparently too wrapped up in the performance to notice.

A PARFAIT CRIME demonstrates that even a rehearsal of Christie play can mean murder and a sprung mousetrap.

Thank you for sharing this glimpse into your novel with us, Maya, and good luck with A Parfait Crime, the latest book in the Five-Ingredient mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Maya Corrigan by visiting the author’s website and. her Facebook and blog pages.

The book is available online at the following retailers: 

 Kensington Paperback  – Kensington E-Book – Amazon – B&N – Kobo 

About Maya Corrigan: Maya lives near Washington, D.C., within easy driving distance of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the setting for this series. She has taught courses in writing, detective fiction, and American literature at Georgetown University and NOVA community college. A winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense, she has published essays on drama and short stories under her full name of Mary Ann Corrigan.