"The Murder at the Vicarage"

It is never a good idea to underestimate your adversary. Take the case of Miss Jane Marple, an elderly and rather kindly woman living in the tiny village of St. Mary Mead, not very far from London. Over the years, a surprising number of criminals have made the mistake of dismissing Miss Marple from their calculations - only to be confounded by her ability to see right through their schemes.

Miss Marple, of course, is the creation of Agatha Christie, who remains, after all these years, the queen of elegant plotting and careful misdirection in the traditional, Golden Age mystery. Miss Marple first appeared in Christie's "The Murder at the Vicarage," published in 1930, and our book for discussion today on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

If you are new to Miss Marple, you should know that, while she has rarely left St. Mary Mead, she has become an expert in her chosen hobby of observing human nature, particularly by sharing the local gossip. The lessons she draws from simple and seemingly trivial village mysteries, such as the disappearance of a container of pickled shrimps, she applies to larger and more complex crimes - including murder.

So when a body is found in the vicarage, which is right next door to Miss Marple's home, she naturally takes a deep interest in the case. When the police inspector assigned to the case, Inspector Slack, goes running off in the wrong direction - well, really in SEVERAL wrong directions - it is up to Miss Marple to see through the various layers of false clues and find the real solution to the case. In true Christie fashion, of course, the reader has been led quite gently and firmly up the wrong path right along with the unhappy Inspector Slack before encountering Miss Marple's elegant - and correct - solution.

"The Murder at the Vicarage" is not necessarily Miss Marple's best outing - or Christie's; for one thing, Miss Marple really isn't given a lot to do until fairly late in the book. But it does introduce her, along with a number of other characters who would reappear in later Miss Marple books, and it is written with enough exuberance to carry the reader over some fairly dry stretches. 82 years after its first publication, it remains readily available in print and it also exists in an Amazon Kindle edition.

Comments

[Margot Kinberg]

Les - Well said on all counts. I do like the groundwork Christie lays here in terms of her "regular" characters. And the mystery itself is in my opinion quite reflective of the times.

[Les Blatt]

Thanks, Margot. It's always fun to see how the characters (including the secondary ones) develop over the years. But St. Mary Mead itself was, and is, always much the same!

[Curtis Evans]

I was mediocre on this book when I read it as a teenager, but love it now, for all the wicked village satire.

[Les Blatt]

Curt, I think we see more of St. Mary Mead in "Vicarage" than we do in the later books - and it's a lovely sight indeed, particularly when the descriptions and dialogues are written with tongue firmly planted in cheek... ;-)

[Yvette]

In my mind and heart, I would love to live in St. Mary Mead. :)

Although an awful lot of murders occur there....It must be the English Village murder capital of the world.

This is one instance in which the PBS adaptation (with Joan Hickson) is actually better than the book. How dare I say that? Well, I just do. :)

I also kind of remember the Jane Marple introduced in this first book isn't the same Jane Marple we grow to like and admire over the years. Christie tweaked her for the better as time went on.

[Les Blatt]

I agree with you, Yvette. Miss Marple became a much more believable (and, in a lot of ways, endearing) character as the series progressed. She's also very effective in the short stories about her. But, as you say, St. Mary Mead can be a dangerous place... ;-)

[MarkB]

I'm more familiar with the Hickson television series and the BBC radio versions, but I did read MATV recently. It seemed like Christie didn't know who Miss Marple was yet. She seems more simply the local gossip who happens to solve the crime than the later sage old wise crone she becomes. There are quite a few dismissive comments by various characters that really aren't gainsayed by Christie anywhere. Sometimes we tend to think of series character as static, when actually they evolve through time.

[Les Blatt]

Mark, she definitely develops in the later stories and books into a far more interesting character. I think that's true of most interesting series characters - if they don't develop, most readers are going to lose interest.