Thursday, December 05, 2019

Review: The Murder at the Vicarage

The Murder at the Vicarage The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As promised, I've begun my read of the Miss Marple mysteries. I almost wrote "reread" but I honestly am not sure which ones I've read and not read.

So: this was written in 1930 and is set in a small English village and I do wonder if that English country life depicted was true then or not.

What I found interesting:

Miss Marple is not the main character, or the person telling the story. The narrator is the vicar, and it's at the vicarage where the dead body is found. Miss Marple is one of the old ladies of the village, and she pops in and out of the narrative. Ultimately, she does solve the mystery, largely because she knows human nature, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And her knowledge comes from a life lived in a small village, and how living in that small area, living in place where you truly know your neighbors -- you learn that people are capable of terrible things. She's not naive.

I also found it interesting that, based on the publication date, Miss Marple mustn't have been intended as someone who anchors a long series because it was published in 1930. And as you'll soon see, the next Miss Marple novel was written in the 1940s.







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