Murder Mysteries

How Far Are The Speckled Band And Lamb To The Slaughter Typical Of

Murder Mysteries? How Are The Stories The Same And How Are They

Different? Compare The Ways In Which The Stories Are Told

Murder mystery usually means where there is a murder involving money,

love or revenge. The victim's friend or a family member goes to a

detective and tells them what they know about the murder and the

suspects and where they were, and what they were doing at that time.

There are a lot of famous detectives in books, TV and video for

example; Sherlock Holmes, Jonathon Creek, Hercule Poirot, Inspector

Morse, Danziel and Pascoe. They even appear in children's books and on

TV, for example, Scooby Doo.

The detective and usually an accomplice will look at all the evidence

and maybe, even find a few red herrings, and suspects and keep the

audience in suspense until the end when they usually set a trap and

say how they found out it was him or her. Sometimes, the murder is set

the other way round where the audience knows who it is but the

detective doesn't.

I have studied the 'Lamb to the Slaughter' by Roald Dahl, a comic

crime thriller in miniature which has become one of his best known

stories and whose plot must be amongst the first ever to have a

freezer in it. Apparently, Ian Fleming had given the idea of the story

to him over dinner. In the text Mary says can they do her one last

thing and eat the evidence and they do and they say, "The evidence is

probably right under their noses," which it is, but they don't know

it. The story is quite modern and it was unusual because of the murder

weapon and it was a female killer.

I have also studied 'The Speckled Band,' by Arthur Conan Doyle. In the

Sherlock Holmes Mysterie...

... middle of paper ...

...ung the big frozen heavy piece of lamb', and 'she might as

well as hit him with a steel club'. These are very strong pieces of

descriptive language which bring the point across very dramatically

which I think he intended to do.This is typical of language of this

time it is very formal and doesn't use words like good day and have

such a posh English accent.

In 'The Speckled Band,' the language is very old and formal old

English like Good day and calling everyone sir and madam and it shows

how much language has changed in time and peoples politeness because

now not many people speak in the tone that they do in, The Speckled

Band'. Arthur Conan Doyle is a well spoken and this comes across in

the story and I also have noticed, that there is no slang words in

'The Speckled Band'. This book is almost 100 years old so it would

appeal to the people of its time.