The Hangman's Rest
And what of the crimes Miss Marple investigates? Murder Most Foul begins with a hanging, a device used as well in Murder Ahoy. Elsewhere poisoning is a popular pastime, whether it's in the snuff, the curried duck, the doctor's syringe or the stovetop pan. What these methods have in common is that they are bloodless.
The other methods of dispatch -- being run through with a rapier, shotgunned at close range, stomped by a horse, pierced by a pin -- are less so, but all occur off-screen with no aspects of violence visible. The exception that tests the rule is the railway strangling in Murder She Said. Bloodless, yes, but hardly nonviolent. This has explained by its mediated nature; it appears as a film within a film, a projection onto the screen of the carriage. And is hence rendered safe.
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