The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple)

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Miss Marple lives in Danemead Cottage, the last cottage in Old Pasture Lane. Her telephone number is "three five" on a manual exchange. [1] The novel was first serialised in the US in the Chicago Tribune in fifty-five instalments from Monday, August 18 to Monday, October 20, 1930. This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater. Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage was my first Miss Marple. Now that I've had her I can say with knowledge born of experience, she ain't half bad! In St. Mary Mead, no one is more despised than Colonel Protheroe. Even the local vicar has said that killing him would be doing a service to the townsfolk. So when Protheroe is found murdered in the same vicar's study, and two different people confess to the crime, it is time for the elderly spinster Jane Marple to exercise her detective abilities.

It is the first novel to feature the character of Miss Marple and her village of St Mary Mead. This first look at St Mary Mead led a reviewer in 1990 to ask why these are called cosy mysteries: "Our first glimpse of St Mary Mead, a hotbed of burglary, impersonation, adultery and ultimately murder. What is it precisely that people find so cosy about such stories?" [4] The story starts nicely with a murder (on second thought, maybe ‘nicely’ isn’t the right word!) but the resolution goes in an unexpected direction. I liked the resolution but some of the red herrings were too farfetched. The vicar and his wife, Leonard and Griselda Clement respectively, who made their first appearance in this novel, continue to show up in Miss Marple stories: notably, in The Body in the Library (1942) and 4.50 from Paddington (1957) Not only are we formally introduced to the village of St Mary Mead and the "Parish cats" otherwise known as Miss Marple and her friends, but several other recurring characters including the vicar and his wife, Leonard and Griselda Clement, who also appeared in The Body in the Library (1942) and 4.50 from Paddington (1957). Dorothy L Sayers was particularly complimentary of this novel. "Dear old Tabbies" she wrote to Christie, "are the only possible right kind of female detective and Miss M is lovely ... I think this is the best you have done - almost".Little Trout - porch was used for the entrance to the village chemist's shop. Around time 1:07 Hawes can be seen exiting the door and he encounters Miss Marple. [1] Colonel Lucius Protheroe is wealthy, active in the church and a magistrate. Yet almost no one in his village, St Mary Mead, likes him; Vicar Leonard Clement endures his public insults while setting up an evening meeting to discuss irregularities in the accounts, and Protheroe's 16 year old daughter Lettice cannot bear him. Both express a wish for him to die, out of frustration with him. Clement sees Mrs Anne Protheroe in tight embrace with Lawrence Redding, clearly tired of her husband. That evening, the Colonel is found murdered in the Vicar's study. The character had previously appeared in short stories published in magazines starting in December 1927. These earlier stories were collected in book form in The Thirteen Problems in 1932.

The plot itself is not very special, it is a typical case of a whodunit where things initially looks like one thing and then grow to involve everyone and closes with us finding the real culprit! To be fair, I still got the rush I get whenever the last chapters reveal everything but in this particular book I think it was not enough to make up for the whole book! Miss Marple tells Clement she has a list of seven possible suspects in mind. Miss Marple sees Miss Cram carrying a suitcase into the woods at midnight, which Clement later finds, along with a small crystal of picric acid. The suitcase proves to contain valuable silver belonging to the Protheroes, and "Dr Stone" turns out to be an impostor, having stolen the identity of a real archaeologist and replaced the Protheroes' belongings with replicas. Bill Archer has a larger role here than in the book. Here he has a relationship with Mary Wright, the maid of the Clements. He trips on a wire in the woods behind the vicarage. He is also present in the vicarage kitchen at various times, perhaps even when the murder is being committed. Me quedé con más ganas de Marple. En este libro, si bien es fundamental para la resolución, se encuentra en segundo plano. Su personaje me gusta mucho, creo que es un acierto utilizar al estereotipo de adulto mayor chismoso para ejercer el rol de detective. Además de aportar humor.In the peaceful village of St. Mary Mead nothing ever happens. So it seems almost incredible when Colonel Protheroe, the churchwarden, is discovered, shot through the head, in the Vicarage study. Everybody thinks they know who has done it – including Miss Marple, the real old maid of the village who knows everything and sees everything and hears everything! She declares that at least seven people have reasons for wishing Colonel Protheroe out of the way! Excitement dies down when somebody confesses to having committed the crime. But that is not the end, for almost immediately somebody quite different also confesses! And there is a third confession through the telephone! But who really killed Colonel Protheroe?” Having read books of the Poirot series, it was surprising for me to be introduced to a strikingly different detective (if I may use that word for Miss Marple). Whereas Poirot is an uncommonly brilliant detective, Miss Maple is more ordinary and reachable. In contrast to the strict professionalism demonstrated in Poirot, here is an ordinary old lady with her powers of observation and a decent deductive mind who solves a murder mystery which the local police fail to solve. What is interesting here is that she doesn't do anything actively to gather evidence

The Murder at the Vicarage is the first full-length novel in the series and I was actually surprised that Miss Marple is not the MC/narrator. The Vicar, Leonard Clement, is!When Colonel Protheroe, hated by all around, is found dead at the Vicarage, the villagers of St Mary Mead are left in an uproar. Miss Marple, an elderly spinster with a talent for snooping and solving little everyday puzzles, promptly joins the investigation. Marple Facsimile edition (Facsimile of 1930 UK first edition), 12 September 2005, Hardcover, ISBN 0-00-720842-1 Agatha ha vuelto a jugar conmigo y me vio todita la cara de tonto. Y eso no me fastidia, claramente me fascina. I really enjoyed the mystery of this. It was completely engaging from the start. The murdered man, one Colonel Protheroe, was a bit of curmudgeon. He was a Judge and definitely had more enemies than friends. Even the Vicar had a cross word for him a time or two.

H.C. O'Neill in The Observer of December 12, 1930 said that, "here is a straightforward story which very pleasantly draws a number of red herrings across the docile reader's path. There is a distinct originality in her new expedient for keeping the secret. She discloses it at the outset, turns it inside out, apparently proves that the solution cannot be true, and so produces an atmosphere of bewilderment." It was first performed at the New Theatre, Northampton on 17 October 1949 prior to moving to the Playhouse Theatre in the West End where it opened on 16 December 1949. The play was the first time that the character of Miss Marple had been depicted outside the original books and she was portrayed by Barbara Mullen. The director was Reginald Tate who also played the part of Lawrence Redding. The play enjoyed a run of 126 performances, closing on 1 April 1950. The characters of Dr. Stone and Gladys Cram and the entire sideplot of theft of silver from Old Hall are deleted. Miss Marple: spinster living in St Mary Mead, next to the vicar. She is observant and knows human behaviour, is recognised in her village as astute and generally correct.I originally gave this book 4 stars , but am seriously considering upping to 5 stars. I shall ponder. What appeals to me most in these Marple novels is how she drops a few thoughts, then scatters around. She leaves mysterious notes for someone to come see her, then won't reveal everything she's thinking. She teases us. But it's as much fun as it is frustrating. She knows, but she's not 100% certain how... so she won't say it all at once until she's got every nasty little detail ferreted out.