Tag: AgathaChristie

Margerumalia – Photo Detective

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – October 9, 2026

This is a photo I forgot to share from our visit to New York City. I’m holding the program for Project: Library in front of the primary set piece for the musical. Taking such a picture before the performance is entirely acceptable when you share it on social media and help spread the word about the show.

Every small theatre needs any extra publicity they can get.

The show had a good run and now our daughter is busy creating self-tape auditions for other productions. (No one actually uses videotape these days, “self-tape” is just a leftover turn of phrase from an earlier era…like dialing a phone…or playing parlor games.)

Last week I wrote about an Agatha Christie mystery I was reading and, looking at this photo, I found myself playing detective to see what I could share with you from a director’s perspective. Here are four interesting details about what you’re seeing.

1. The bookshelves across the upstage wall have no back to them giving the books a supernatural glow from behind. Why is that? My daughter explained that the pit band and their conductor who are seated behind the set need to see important moments on stage for their music cues. And, to the left—hidden by my program—there’s a wide entrance that affords the conductor greater visibility of other places on stage.

2. The white dots you see on the floor are not lens reflections, those are painted on the floor and they’re called spike marks. They let actors and stagehands know exactly where to place a chair or table on stage. In technical rehearsals, the lights were focused on those areas to isolate an actor during certain scenes. Without the spike marks there’s a risk that the actor might be half in shadow.

That’s okay for the Phantom of the Opera, but not for most other characters.

3. To the right of the bookshelves you can barely see the door that matches the cover of the program. Look for the shiny reflection of the doorknob. And, yes, a mysterious backlit figure will stand in that doorway. Count on it!

4. Now take a look at the program where that backlit figure casts a shadow over the title of the musical. If you look very carefully, you’ll see it’s the shadow of a dragon. Why? Because the unreturned book that’s accumulated a million dollars in late fees is Rory the Dragon. That’s what sets off the whole plot! Our daughter got to be the puppeteer of that dragon in a dream sequence about halfway through the musical.

So here’s a fun game of parlor game to play with a friend. Swap photos and then share what you can figure out based on what you see. Follow that up by creating backstories for people and places in the photo. You don’t have to play this game in a parlor—I don’t think anyone has parlors anymore—just enjoy getting together and making stuff up.

TTFN

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Here’s another one of the captions I submitted to The New Yorker. Enjoy!

I blame it on the current administration: everyone’s losing their cool.

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – October 2, 2026

Yesterday we entered October Country where things are not always what they seem and the unknown is mysterious indeed. The mystery above, though, is in the capable hands of the famous detective Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie’s most well-known crime solvers.

I read my first Agatha Christie mystery in high school when the Scholastic Books were featured on a four page flyer and you could order a pocket paperback for 75 cents. I chose The ABC Murders and was introduced to M. Poirot and his “little grey cells” long before I delved into my First Sherlock Holmes story.

“It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within—not without.” ~ Poirot

At that same high school, where I substituted just last week, a free-for-the-taking withdrawal cart outside the library held three Agatha Christie novels. Two of them featured Hercule Poirot. I intend to read them all and then donate them to a “little library” I’ve seen around town.

In this story, M. Poirot visits his dentist and observes a young man in the waiting room who he thinks looks like a murderer. Of course, a death does take place and Chief Inspector Japp requests the help of Poirot to solve the unexplained circumstances.

The dentist is found dead in his office, shot apparently by his own hand. Then the patient he worked on last dies at home of a heart attack. Perhaps the dentist realized he had injected too much painkiller and committed suicide rather than face the consequences? Poirot isn’t convinced and starts to investigate a possible murder.

This rather cozy mystery has all the elements of the standard motive-means-opportunity puzzle that seems a little mundane for this detective. Then Poirot learns that there is something far more important going on that has the flavor of an international incident. The scope of the puzzle widens considerably.

I leave the rest for you discover on your own.

(It’s interesting to note that this story was first published in 1941 during the German Blitzkrieg of WWII before the US entered the war with the attack on Pearl Harbor.)

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – You Have The Lindbergh Baby!

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – March 21, 2025

Do you know the famous story of the Lindbergh Baby who was kidnapped out of his crib in 1932, with a ransom note left where the child had been sleeping? It was called “The Crime of The Century” and, in an era before social media or even television, everyone and their neighbor was on the lookout for the Lindbergh Baby.

The whole world was horrified by the thought that this cute curly-haired innocent had been grabbed by someone nefarious, someone who would bring harm to the little son of an American Hero. Ever since Lindbergh flew his single-engine, single-seat plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, across the Atlantic from New York to Paris, he had earned his way into the hearts of the American Public and the world.

Here is a picture of my mother, Sonya, who was born in 1930 when Charles Lindbergh, jr. was born. 

You see the resemblance, don’t you?

My Mom’s father was a lawyer working for the government in Washington, D.C. and the family was living nearby in Maryland. 

People literally stopped my young grandmother in the store or on the street to gasp, “You have the Lindbergh Baby!” The two babies were the same age, after all, and they both had a generous mop of white curly hair. Everyone was on the lookout for the child, picturing themselves as the hero who would would bring him home.

She wasn’t the Lindbergh Baby, of course, and people were disabused of that idea when they learned that she was a little girl. She sure matched the description, though. 

Unfortunately the story had a tragic ending when a truck driver found the little boy’s body by the side of the road. An immigrant was accused of the crime and was found guilty in “The Trial of the Century.” He insisted that he was innocent of the crime but all appeals failed and he was executed in 1936. 

Agatha Christie was moved to write a murder mystery inspired by the kidnapping of the Lindbergh Baby, without actually naming the famous aviator. It was called Murder on the Orient Express and I won’t give any spoilers but the story provides some poetic justice to the story of the kidnapping. 

In that story, the kidnapped baby is a girl, and her mother is named Sonia. 

It’s one of Christie’s most famous novels, and her readers knew all about that kidnapping. Now you do, too, so you can read or re-read the book with new appreciation. 

TTFN 

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I found the WANTED poster and additional facts about the Kidnapping of the Lindbergh Baby on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping. The article also discusses the many theories about the guilt or innocence of the accused kidnapper.

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