Review: The Body in the Library

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My reading of Miss Marple continues!

Miss Marple, little old lady, whose observations of those around her, and memory of all the local gossip, and ability to apply what happens in one situation to other situations, makes her the perfect mystery solver.

Here the mystery: a body is found in the library of a house and no one recognizes the dead woman! Who is she, why is she there, and who killed her?

This one takes place in Miss Marple's home town. One thing I found interesting with this series is the publication dates: such huge gaps! I want to reread Christie's biography, to get a better grasp of why there is such a time difference. That said, this is set in 1942, and yet Miss Marple is basically "the same age," but I guess old is old. What does change is the world around her, what is shown, what is thought.

The belief system of the people in the Marple books are unchanged: the characters' belief in class and the class system is so clear. As the books go further into the twentieth century, there is a sense of how the good old days where better because folks knew and appreciated their place in society.

Anyway! Here!

There is a reference to a main couple from the first book; very slight, and it's clear that in the Marple world this book isn't ten years but only two or so years after the first, because the baby announced in that book is now at the crawling stage.







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