![]() The police detective determines that the envelopes were all “typed by someone using one finger” to avoid a recognisable ‘touch’. The anonymous letters point blame from one town resident to another. The title shows in the story figuratively and literally. The poem, in turn, refers to Belshazzar’s feast as related in the Book of Daniel, where the expression the writing on the wall originated. Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, The book takes its name from quatrain 51 of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: The Moving Finger writes and, having writ, She enters the story in the final quarter of the book, in a handful of scenes, after the police have failed to solve the crime. This novel features the elderly detective Miss Marple in a relatively minor role, “a little old lady sleuth who doesn’t seem to do much”. A prominent resident is found dead with one such letter found next to her. They are not the only ones in the village to receive such letters. ![]() The Burtons, brother and sister, arrive in the small town (or village) of Lymstock in Devon, and soon receive an anonymous letter accusing them of being lovers, not siblings. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence. The Moving Finger is a detective novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the USA by Dodd, Mead and Company in July 1942 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in June 1943. ![]()
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