The murder at the vicarage (original: 1930; edição: 2016)

Christie's hook of making Mrs. Marple understand mysteries by relating them to thinks she's seen in the village is somehow brilliant. It never gets boring.

The first Christie novel I've read in years, and the first Miss Marple one. Really charming and fun! I forgot how funny Christie is. I have a bone to pick with people who complain Miss Marple is too mean in this which is too long to go into here, but anyhow, really good. ( )

Agatha Christie's Ms Marple is introduced when a body is found in a vicarage in a small village. It seems one suspect after another is not quite telling the truth but Ms Marple is determined to uncover who's lying & who's telling the truth in spite of the Inspector's resistance to her hints. What's in the flowerpot or lack thereof breaks open the case & a cleverly laid plan collapses like a house of cards. ( )

NB-3

In this first of the Miss Marple mystery series, the quite dislikable Colonel Protheroe is found shot dead in the vicar's study, with a long list of possible suspects. Everyone seems to have at some point wished him dead, but everyone also seems to have an alibi, and no one in or near the house heard the shot. As the vicar's next-door neighbor, Miss Marple also remembers what she saw on the day of the murder; as professional investigators try (and fail) to get to the bottom of the mystery, Miss Marple is also slowly putting the clues together.

I found this book fine. My favorite part was definitely theorizing partway through the book about who might have done it. I wasn't right, as it turns out, though I do think that I like my theorized solution better than the ultimately correct one. I have read that Miss Marple's character apparently changes a lot over the series, so it might be fun to pick up another of these books at some point. ( )