What are the similarities and differences between Roald Dahl’s ‘Lambs to the slaughter’ and ‘The speckled band’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

In Lambs to the slaughter the author uses modern day values and begins by describing a comfy, homely and well looked after house and describes Mrs Maloney as a devoted wife who is content with life and very happy and so at first appears to be the victim, the writer also shows that the wife cares deeply for her husband when she takes his coat and gets him a drink, all this helps build the suspense. The writer doesn't say what Mr Maloney said to his wife, I think this is because he was trying to emphasize the fact that she was trying not to hear it and pretending it was all just a dream and he was trying to build suspense, but what he did tell her in that moment destroyed her and so she was very emotional at this point although he doesn't give any indication as to when she decided to kill her husband it must have been between the time Mr Maloney told her and when she hit him with the meat. The Victim Mr Maloney was very bad in timing his break up with his wife, as she pregnant and I believe he didn't know this, this child adds to tension being built, as not many people know what happens to pregnant murderers. I believe that Mrs Maloney isn't a cold blooded killer, merely well informed of the consequences of her actions and she knows that to get away with the murder she would have to make the events look natural on her part. The detectives in Lambs to the slaughter are ineffective at finding the killer or the murder weapon that by the end they have eaten and so I believe that Mrs Maloney has got away with the murder.

'The speckled band' is set in late Victorian times and uses late Victorian values and one of the first books in a long line of murder mysteries loved and devoured by the Victorian public. The plays begins with a account begins with an account of the victim Mrs Stoner she is described as "her face all drawn and grey, with restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard" Sherlock Holmes noted all this with one of his 'quick, all-comprehensive glances'. Her being prematurely grey suggests that she was under a lot of stress or had to be on her guard all the time. She is very afraid that something may happen to her. The is the detective in the story although he doesn't like to be associated with the law, he is a very intellectual man who is described as making "rapid deductions, as swift intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis." While the Murderer Mr Moran is very devious and is described as being "a man of immense strength, and absolute uncontrollable anger." He is part of a family that through a succession of ' a dissolute and wasteful deposition,' wasted the family fortune