Comparing Two Murder Mysteries

Comparing Two Murder Mysteries

We read two murder mysteries; 'Lamb to the Slaughter' and 'The

Speckled Band', which we were required to compare as murder mysteries.

Murder mysteries are stories or films in which one or more murders

have been committed and the characters are trying to find out who the

murderer is. Usually the suspect is someone who is very close to the

victim, but suddenly kills the victim, which makes it harder for the

detectives to solve the mystery, as they would not think that the

suspect was the killer. In most murder mysteries, the killer gets

caught, but in some the killer escapes.

'Lamb to the Slaughter'

The first story we read was 'Lamb to the Slaughter'. The story has a

rather unusual name for a murder mystery because a lamb is an innocent

animal and people would not link it with murders.

In 'Lamb to the Slaughter', a character in the story named Mr. Maloney

is murdered by his wife. Mrs. Maloney uses the closest heavy object

near her, which is the leg of a lamb, as a murder weapon to kill her

husband and this is how the title of the story is related to the

mystery. In the story, Mrs. Maloney was a very loving and caring

person before she killed her husband and she was also pregnant, which

makes it more of a mystery for the detectives, because they would

never think twice that the suspect was Mrs. Maloney. Mrs. Maloney

kills her husband and then quickly goes to the shops, so that the shop

keepers could be her alibis. She comes home again and calls the

police, claiming that she came home from the shops and found her

husband dead on the floor.

There is a part in the story which is very ironic because Mrs. Malony

cooked the lamb, she offered some to the detectives to eat and while

they were eating, they were talking and one of the detectives

mentioned that the murder weapon could be right under their noses.

In this story we, the readers, know who the killer is but wait in