Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie | Miss Marple #1

This was my first Agatha Christie novel and the first to feature her infamous Miss Marple. The title is incredibly shelf-explanatory and the plot centres around the murder of Colonel Pletheroe who is killed one afternoon whilst visiting his friend Reverend Clement ....

Something that I was struck by, and perhaps shouldn't have been considering the title of the books, was that story is narrated by the vicar himself. It made for an interesting perspective as I had expected the story to be told in the third person and so be second guessing everyone, but it was nice to have some certainty in an otherwise very uncertain text.

The plot was typical of Christie and made for some very cosy crime. I almost had the feeling that the book was perpetually trapped on a Sunday afternoon. Miss Marple herself did not play a starring role in the book, but I quite liked that we were getting a view of her from another's perspective. However, I would like to learn more about her and her history and hopefully in later books Christie goes into more depth about her main character.

I have to admit that I did not guess who the murderer(s) were and that was the greatest joy for me in this book as usually on murder mystery TV shows I quite often guess whodunnit early on. I have since watched the ITV adaptation of this book and found it to be incredibly obvious, but then I suppose I already knew and TV cannot allow for as many subtleties as a book. Horror and tragedy have never been my thing, but I think that Agatha Christie is definitely an author that can offer me a crime novel in an entertaining way.

One thing that I like about murder mysteries and Agatha Christie in particular is that you never quite feel that it's real. This may be because the 1930s feels far removed from 2014, but even then the characters seem to be quite hollow and for once in a book that is exactly what is needed. I doubt very much that I would be happy with being entertained by the death of another person, but in this instant it feels as though it is morally sound.

★★★★