Title: The Murder at the Vicarage
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication Year: 1930
Pages: 231
Genre: Mystery
Count for Year: 27
How I discovered
I have joined Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise with her Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and this is the first Miss Marple mystery.
The setup
Murder at the Vicarage marks the debut of Agatha Christie’s unflappable and much beloved female detective, Miss Jane Marple. With her gift for sniffing out the malevolent side of human nature, Miss Marple is led on her first case to a crime scene at the local vicarage. Colonel Protheroe, the magistrate whom everyone in town hates, has been shot through the head. No one heard the shot. There are no leads. Yet, everyone surrounding the vicarage seems to have a reason to want the Colonel dead. It is a race against the clock as Miss Marple sets out on the twisted trail of the mysterious killer without so much as a bit of help from the local police.
– synopsis from Barnes & Noble
I had taken a break from Dame Christie for a bit, but decided to return with this one, the first of the Miss Marple series — even though Christie doesn’t return to Marple for 12 years.It was a good one to get back on track with the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.
Like other Christie mysteries, the narrator of the story is not the detective, but instead an outsider to the action, in this case, the vicar of the vicarage where the murder takes place. Also as in other Christie mysteries, the detective, in this case, Miss Marple, who lives nearby the vicarage, isn’t really seen involved with the case until late in the book. She makes appearances early, but for the most part, the vicar tells the story with an inspector, Inspector Slack, doing the main investigating. Her
However, what is evident again is Christie’s sense of humor, especially with the vicar’s thoughts. Two examples spring to mind. The first comes after a conversation his wife and Miss Marple are having early in the novel.
“We were just talking,” said Griselda in a honey-sweet voice, “about Doctor Stone and Miss Cram.”
A ribald rhyme conacted by Dennis shot through my head. Miss Cram doesn’t give a damn. I had a sudden yearning to say it out loud and observe the effect, but fortunately I refrained.
Then later in the novel, the vicar is questioning a servant:
“It’s quite true, sir, I heard a sneexe. And it wasn’t an ordinary sneeze — not by any means.”
Nothing about a crime is ever ordinary. The shot was not an ordinary kind of shot. The sneeze was not a usual kind of sneeze. It was, I presume, a special murder’s sneeze…
But perhaps my favorite passage in the novel is where Miss Marple explains why she enjoys investigating things the way she does, just as Poirot in earlier novels describes the way he investigates:
“You see,” she began at last, “living alone as I do, in a rather out-of-the-way part of the world, one has to have a hobby. There is, of course, woolwork, and Guides, and Welfare, and sketching, but my hobby is– and always has been– Human Nature. So varied– and so very fascinating. And, of course, in a small village, with nothing to distract one, one has such ample opportunity for becoming what I might call proficient in one’s study. One begins to class people, quite definitely, as though they were birds or flowers, group so and so, genus this, species that. Sometimes, of course, one makes mistakes, but less and less as time goes on., And then, too, one tests oneself. One takes a little problem– for instance the gill of picked shrimps that amused dear Griselda so much– a quite unimportant mystery, but absolutely incomprehensible unless one solves it right. And then there was that matter of the changed cough drops, and the butcher’s wife’s umbrella– the last absolutely meaningless, unless on the assumption that the greengrocer was not behaving at all nicely with the chemist’s wife– which, of course, turned out to be the case. It is so fascinating, you know, to apply one’s judgment and find that one is right.”
Originally, as of this morning, I was going to give this a 4 out of 5 in my rating system, but now as I reconsider the novel, I must give it a 5 out of 5 or a classic, if for nothing else, that is the introduction to Miss Marple. Unfortunately, I won’t be meeting up with her again until Christie’s 1942 A Body in the Library. Ah, well, on to the next novel: The Sittaford Mystery, also known as Murder at Hazelmoor.
My rating system:
5- Classic, must read
4- Worth owning a copy
3- Worth picking up at library
2- Worth skimming at the bookstore
1- Worth being a doorstop
For others reviews of the book:
If you also have reviewed the book, please leave a link in the comments, or e-mail me at justareadingfool (at) gmail (dot) com and I will add your review to the list.
Another Sunday Salon post later this afternoon.
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3 Comments
July 19, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I loved Agatha Christie as a teenager. Read it all. Even went and saw the uneven but interesting movie about her disappearance. But have not visited her works in years. You have offered quite the temptation here! Happy reading!
July 19, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I had read many an Agatha Christie as a teenager also and it was too much of a temptation for me. Feel free to join us. Kerrie would love to have you join us. No time commitment (like needs to be done by end of year or anything like that, just as you get to them). So far, for me, it’s been fun and I’m going on I think 11.
July 19, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I’m a Poirot man myself. I’ve never got interested in Marple. I might look at them again in case I missed something.