In the novel The Moving Finger, Mr Hunter (or Captain Hunter) was the first husband of Mona Symmington and the father of Megan Hunter. Hunter was apparently someone whom the residents of Lymstock did not want to talk about very much--they considered him someone best forgotten. Hunter had apparently treated his wife Mona very badly. Mona divorced him a year or two after their marriage and then moved with her daughter Megan to Lymstock. Hunter does not appear in the story in person and is only mentioned. Megan later said that she did not know much about her father as no one wanted to say much about him but she did know that he had been imprisoned for blackmail.
Portrayals[]
Hunter does not feature in the BBC 1985 adaptation of the novel.
In the ITV 2006 adaptation of the novel (Episode 2, Series of Agatha Christie's Marple), towards the end of the show, Megan confronts Richard Symmington in a scene similar to that in the original novel. She tells him that while no one actually told her about her natural father, she had found out that he went to jail for blackmail and that she was about to do the same thing to Symmington. She then demanded money from him and if he didn't pay, she would tell the police that she had seen Symmington tampering with sleeping draught of Mona Symmington. Megan was doing this as part of a stratigem organised by Miss Marple to expose Symmington as a killer. Megan did not mention her father's name here but in the show her surname is Hunter.