Series: Miss Mapple

A Murder Is Announced

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A Murder Is Announced
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, Book # 4
HarperCollins Publishers
June 1950
Paperback
382
English
December 1, 2021 December 5, 2021
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Promoted on both sides of the Atlantic as Agatha Christie's 50th book and published in 1950 by William Collins, A Murder is Announced is a staple of crime fiction and is often considered the best of all the Miss Marple novels. The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.’ A childish practical joke? Or a hoax intended to scare poor Letitia Blacklock? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out…

About the book

A death announcement is posted in the local Chipping Cleghorn newspaper. A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.. Friends are requested to take note of this warning which will never be repeated. Everyone in town feels compelled to go to Miss Blacklock’s house to really see if this crime will happen, and indeed someone dies. Murder or misfortune? After the incident, the commissioner tries to understand what really happened and gets help from a rather particular woman, first a guest in a hotel in the area and then by the wife of the parish priest of the town (they were also present that evening). Obviously this little woman is Miss Marple who happens to be able to be useful despite her ailments.

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The Moving Finger

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The Moving Finger
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, Book # 3
HarperCollins Publishers
July 1942
Paperback
299
English
November 28, 2021 November 30, 2021
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The placid village of Lymstock seems the perfect place for Jerry Burton to recuperate from his accident under the care of his sister, Joanna. But soon a series of vicious poison-pen letters destroys the village's quiet charm, eventually causing one recipient to commit suicide. The vicar, the doctor, the servants—all are on the verge of accusing one another when help arrives from an unexpected quarter. The vicar's houseguest happens to be none other than Jane Marple.

About the book

The book is narrated by Jerry Burton, a pilot who must remain calm after an injury and what could be better than a country holiday in the small town of Lymstok where nothing happens? So he is in this village when anonymous letters start arriving to most of the citizens. These letters, full of absurdities, end up creating two deaths. The potential culprits are many, but only Miss Marple will be able to solve the case.

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Murder at the Vicarage

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Murder at the Vicarage
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, Book # 1
HarperCollins Publishers
October 1930
Paperback
380
English
August 11, 2021 August 16, 2021
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Murder at the Vicarage marks the debut of Agatha Christie’s unflappable and much beloved female detective, Miss Jane Marple. With her gift for sniffing out the malevolent side of human nature, Miss Marple is led on her first case to a crime scene at the local vicarage. Colonel Protheroe, the magistrate whom everyone in town hates, has been shot through the head. No one heard the shot. There are no leads. Yet, everyone surrounding the vicarage seems to have a reason to want the Colonel dead. It is a race against the clock as Miss Marple sets out on the twisted trail of the mysterious killer without so much as a bit of help from the local police.

About the book

First Agatha Christie’s book in the series with Miss Marple as main character, in which a colonel hated by everyone in town is killed in the vicarage. The narrator is a man who is the priest of a small village in which among the others lives Miss Marple an old lady who has a particular hobby: being nosy and solve mysteries.

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The Thirteen Problems

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The Thirteen Problems
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, Book # 2
Harper
June 1932
Paperback
315
English
November 5, 2019 November 8, 2019

One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes…

The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death…

Now pit your wits against the powers of deduction of the ‘Tuesday Night Club’.

About the book

Fourth Agatha Christie’s book that I read and I need to say that this is the one that I liked the most. I think I’m going to read other Agatha’s books now that my “Italian publisher”, Mondadori, is publishing the books again with the covers that I like.

Anyway, this book is like the Decameron by Boccaccio in which a group of people are in the same room and everyone tells a story. In this case they are detective stories (and they aren’t escaping the plague) and each person tells her/his story and the others need to find out the culprit. Obviously Miss Marple finds out everything.

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The Body in the Library

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The Body in the Library


, Book # 3
Kindle Edition
February 1942
ebook
224
English
February 8, 2018 February 12, 2018

Colonel Bantry has found the strangled body of an exotic blonde bombshell lying on his library hearth - and the neighbors are beginning to talk! When Miss Marple takes an interest, though, things begin to move along nicely, and its all far more convoluted - and sordid - than the genteel Bantrys could have imagined.

A curmudgeonly financier, his self-absorbed adult children, a couple of pragmatic and clever hotel workers, tons of money and influence, a wild local lad, some smitten girls, the film business, mix into a classic Christie plot filled with twists, turns, and double-backs galore. Plus the glorious settings of A Great House, a fancy Hotel, and an excessively genteel little village, and let's not forget Miss Marple...

About the book

This is a fairly old book, I read it for the Popsugar challenge “a book set in a bookstore or library” and therefore I had no expectations. I’ve never read anything about Agatha Christie and I do not think I will read anything else about the author. I found this story a bit too simple.

I have a question: isn’t the series titled Miss Marple? Because I met her only twice and I’m on page 47…. I thought she was going to be more present… Maybe in the other books she is more present but not in this one and I’m sad about it.

The book is nice, obviously being a dated book is not one of those complicated that exist now and that obviously I like more, but the reading was pleasant, simple even if as I said I hoped for more Miss Marple. All right, she solves the case, but being the protagonist (more or less) I would have liked more presence. It was a little obvious who the killer was, reading the mysteries written nowadays, solving the case before the protagonist of an “ancient” book is common I think, but I did not see the small final twist.

The title, among other things, especially the English one (The Body in the Library) reminds me of an episode of the Bones TV series…