Up for Grabs - THE IRON HEART by Marshall Browne.Review: THE WHOLE TRUTH, David Baldacci.Forgotten Book: THE CURSE OF KINGS, Victoria Holt.Review: TEA TIME for the TRADITIONALLY BUILT, Alex.Write a story with me (or another friend).Review: THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE, Agatha Christie.Blog Improvement Project #8: Leaving Good Comments.Forgotten Book: MAIGRET and THE ENIGMATIC LETT, G.Review: ECHOES FROM THE DEAD, Johan Theorin.Forgotten Book: THE WATCHER IN THE SHADOWS, Geoffr.A number of reviewers in 1930 said that it was far from her best.īrowse inside the book and read the first 5 chapters online. I thought this, #10, the best in the Agatha Christie novels so far, but apparently it did not get a particularly good reception. In fact, I wondered if she was thinking of a partnership, and indeed, the vicar and his wife appear in the next Miss Marple mystery THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY (1942). I wasn't convinced that Agatha Christie had quite settled on Miss Marple as her next sleuth. The vicar comes to appreciate that she misses very little. THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE is written through the vicar's eyes, and at first we see Jane Marple as a village busybody, not particularly popular, and extremely observant. However I did feel he was more of equal standing with Miss Marple. In THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE the Vicar plays a similar role to Hastings with Poirot, and Watson with Holmes. Indeed Miss Marple won't get another outing for another 12 years. Up until now she has seemed to be in search of a satisfactory protagonist, although Hercule Poirot has made 5 appearances. This is Agatha Christie's first book with Miss Marple. Between them Miss Marple and the vicar make a formidable sleuthing team.

She has always believed the method she has developed could be used in a 'real' case and here is her chance. Until this point Miss Jane Marple who lives right next door to the vicarage had only exercised her deductive skills on petty incidents. It was more than a decade since there had been a murder in the village, before the vicar's time. And what's more shot while he was sitting at a writing table in the vicar's study. Even the Vicar had been heard to wish him dead. Originally published in 1930, this edition is a Marple tie-in edition published by Harper Collins in 2005, to match up with the tele-movie starring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, Derek Jacobi as Colonel Protheroe, and Stephen Tompkinson as the Vicar, Leonard Clement, married to Griselda.Ĭhurch warden Lucius Protheroe must have been the most unpopular man in St.

Joan hickson the murder at the vicarage