Words on Wednesday: An Unexpected Pair of Books, and an Old Friend Revisited

Actually i'd read two of these previously. . . .

An Agatha Christie Story

  i first read Agatha Christie's "A Murder is Announced" in 1979 or so.  It was one of the books i bought at the downtown bookstore while waiting for my bus, which only went halfway home, and which i read ON the bus.
  The thing that struck me this time, which i'd missed before, was that the characters kept insisting that their refugee cook was a liar.
  The stories the cook told of her homeland seem quite in keeping with other things i've heard about WWII Nazi-occupied countries.  But, to the English around her, her tales must have seemed incredible.
  So incredible were her stories considered, that everything she said about the present was taken as unreliable, when it turned out she was the most reliable witness in the story.

What Connects the Recent Mystery and the Jane Austen tale?

   i've read Northanger Abbey two or three times before.  Mum's the Word has been on our shelf, um, quite a few years, without any of us reading it.  

•  They are FUNNY.
• There's a Gothic mansion. 
• Both books parody genrres and cliches.
• The female lead characters are in new places, without many of their usual friends.
• Mum's the Word references movies; Northanger Abbey references Gothic novels.
• Catherine (Northanger Abbey) and Ellie (Mum's the Word) both tend to let their emotions run away with them. 

Mum's the Word Synopsis
Major Themes of Northanger Abbey

  i would love to own every Jane Austen book, though this one is the only one i have.  (i also enjoy zombie-less similar stories.)
  Mum's the Word was my introduction to the Ellie/Thin Woman series.  While i don't feel compelled to own every book in the series, and in fact no longer own this one, i would very much enjoy reading the whole series.