Marple

“It has just happened that I have found myself in the vicinity of murder rather more often than would seem normal.” 

Miss Marple (Agatha Christie)

When you think of a detective, you so might only rarely imagine a kindly-looking little old lady sitting in the corner and observing everything with sharp eyes and a sharper mind. But I adore the thought and honestly – why shouldn’t it be so? The older we get and the more we have experienced, if we are very lucky, then the wiser we become. So it is with Agatha Christie’s second-most famous creation.

I promise it won’t be Agatha Christie all the time, but I’m on a definite murder mystery kick at the moment and Miss Marple is one of the finest. Having no official access and certainly receiving less respect than Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple still manages to bring about justice for the multitude of murder-victims she just happens to encounter whilst living the life of a gentile country lady. She uses the fact that people do not suspect her and like to talk to her (and like to talk in general) to her advantage time after time. Because she has no official capacity, it does of course raise the question of why she seems to encounter murder quite so often. This, Agatha Christie addresses, in rather tongue-in-cheek fashion such as in the above quote. No doubt this was a question she was met with often from fans.

Appearing in only a dozen novels, there isn’t enough Marple to satisfy, but she represents a voice and shrewd intellect displayed in an older, single lady that is very rarely shown today, almost 100 years later. I’ve also watched the most recent television adaptions of some of the Marple books (and plenty of non-Marple books that she is inserted into) and though they are often slightly different, plot-wise, I found they really bought the atmosphere of the books to life and I enjoyed them all greatly. If anything, they add an extra twist as you can never be certain you know how they story will end even if you’ve read the books.

In short, I’d recommend anything Marple for many of the same reasons that I so enjoy Poirot – they are a fantastic escape that can both totally occupy your attention and also be enjoyed in small chunks to fit in with your day-to-day life. Like Poirot, she is a bit of an outsider and sometimes not taken too seriously. Unlike Poirot, she does not pronounce her excellence and appears quite modest and unassuming. Which, of course, makes snooping all the easier.