Tag: Miss Marple

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – Month 8 – Midsummer Mysteries (2021)

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The theme for this month’s challenge was a story set at the seaside and the recommended title at agathachristie.com was this recently published collection of 12 stories and 1 autobiographical extract.  It’s an unsurprising companion piece to “Midwinter Murders” which appeared at the end of last year.  I think maybe the fireside and a winter evening feels more appropriate for Christie.  I wasn’t exactly thrilled to purchase this book but certainly wasn’t giving up on the Challenge at this point and I can see why the official website is promoting this collection.

Discounting the introductory fragment here called “Summer In The Pyrenees” which came from the 1977 “An Autobiography” most of these stories herald from the 1920s with just one first published in 1933.  I was disappointed that they did not feel unified by the theme- summer is strong in a couple of the tales but otherwise the selection seems somewhat random.  Two I’ve also read this year in the challenge as they were taken from “Parker Pyne Investigates”.  I think they do make more of an impression, however, in this collection.

Poirot gets the lion’s share of stories with four and the strongest is the longest which closes the collection, “The Incredible Theft” which adds a touch of political intrigue to the country house tale.  Two Marple stories come from “The Thirteen Problems” which I assume follows the format of mysteries being told by different individuals in a group with Marple providing the solution.  She doesn’t really exist as a character here.  That said, the summer flavour of “The Blood Stained Pavement” was strong and this would end up in my Top 3 from this collection.

I’ve not read the five Tommy and Tuppence novels and I don’t think “The Adventure Of The Sinister Stranger” would spur me on to do so.  Out of context from its appearance in “The Mysterious Mr Quin”, “Harlequin’s Lane” is just odd and I found it hard to like. 

My favourite and one that best fits with the theme is the stand-alone “The Rajah’s Emerald” in which the crime is backstage leaving us with a highly likeable character study of James Bond (no, not that one, Christie is using the name long before Ian Fleming) attempting to impress his girlfriend on the beach, but unable to compete with her wealthier, more entertaining friends.

This is definitely a mixed bag of tales and I can’t help feeling that most would work better in their original collections.  I’m not sure that if this was my introduction to Agatha Christie (and theoretically a new publication would lure new readers in) whether I would have a strong urge to read on.  I think, because of the stronger variety, I’d put it just ahead of Month 2’s “Parker Pyne Investigates” as my 7th favourite from the Challenge.  Next month I’m to read a novel featuring a school.  I think I will be back in Poirot territory.

Midsummer Mysteries was published by Harper Collins on 22nd July   2021.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – Month 7 – The Murder At The Vicarage (1930)

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This is more like it!  This has the sparkle I was expecting from Agatha Christie which I haven’t always found in some of the other books I’ve read during this Challenge.  This month the book needed to feature a vicar and here we have one in a first-person narrative.  It is set in St. Mary Mead and was the first novel to feature Miss Marple, not in a central role but she certainly knows what’s going on and I’m not surprised that Christie saw her potential as a recurring character.

Clement, the vicar lives with his much younger wife Griselda and his sixteen year old nephew Dennis at The Vicarage.  The Protheroes lives up at the Old Hall.  In the opening lunch scene the vicar announces any would-be murderer of Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world a great service and before long the Colonel turns up dead in the vicar’s study.  It’s investigated by the prickly Inspector Slack who has no time for how things are done in small villages and the more genial Chief Constable Colonel Melchett.  Two people own up to the murder early on but their confessions do not fit into the timeline.  The villagers, especially the group of elderly ladies who don’t miss a trick are keen to unravel the truth behind the murder.

There’s a good range of suspects to consider from an adulterous couple, the future heiress, a handsome artist, a mysterious newcomer and a vengeful poacher and luckily Miss Marple is on hand to sort and analyse as in Christie’s words; “There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”

This has been my favourite of the Christie titles I have read for the seven months of the Challenge.  Next month I need to seek out a story set at the seaside.

Murder At The Vicarage was first published in 1930.  I read a Harper Collins e-book edition.

Agatha Christie Challenge – Month 6 – Nemesis (1971)

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It’s half-way through the challenge set by agathachristie.com and I’m still going strong.  This month the choice had to involve gardens and this late-period Miss Marple was the official suggestion.  By 1971 Agatha Christie was a publishing phenomenon and had been putting out her crime stories for over 50 years.  I really enjoyed having Miss Marple as the central character here, rather than off in the side-lines (as she was in last month’s choice “A Pocket Full Of Rye”).  By this time the mature amateur sleuth had been cracking cases for 41 years and as a character, Christie, who by this time was herself 81, allows Miss Marple to feel her age, living a much more sedentary life at St. Mary Mead (her doctor seems to have banned her from gardening) is in need of more care and is less mobile (although she soon leaves the village and is off on location for this book).  There are quite a lot of references made to advancing age for both Marple and other characters here.

There is actually a weird sense of time going on.  Whilst perusing the obituaries Marple notes the passing of a character she has previously encountered in “A Caribbean Mystery” a 1964 novel which I have never read.  Plot-wise, though this is set only around a year and a half later and the death notice leads to her involvement with other characters but its conveyed as if it is years ago and these overlapping characters have only hazy memories of one another.  I’m sure if I met Miss Marple on holiday 18 months ago and became embroiled in a murder situation with her I would have remembered clearly.

It is a strange plot structure here which can feel a little lumbering but it does allow my favourite of Christie’s recurring characters to have prominence.  The dead man offers Miss Marple a reward for some sleuthing but she has to embark on this without knowing what is going on or why.  It requires her attendance on a organised tour of English houses and gardens (there’s the Challenge theme for you) during which she begins to piece together what is asked of her.

There’s a lot of chat and not much action and a lot of reiterating what Marple already knows when she encounters characters who might edge her quest forward.  Christie normally catches me out but I had this one solved quite early on.  A little more tension might have been good for the reader if not for the well-being of Christie’s aging characters.

This was the last Miss Marple novel Agatha Christie wrote (although “Sleeping Murder” was the last one published) and it is a bit of a muted, if age-appropriate farewell.  At the time it was generally considered not be amongst her finest.  On my list of those I have read so far for the challenge I think I would slot it in at 4th below “The Hollow” and just above “Lord Edgware Dies”.  For August’s challenge my job is to read a book involving a vicar, a challenge which I could have anticipated would make an appearance before long.

Nemesis was first published in 1971. It is available in the UK as a Harper Collins paperback. Further details/book group info etc on the Reading Challenge can be found at www.agathachristie.com

Margaret Rutherford: Dreadnought With Good Manners – Andy Merriman (2009) – A Real Life Review

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Many years ago I read “Margaret Rutherford: A Blithe Spirit” (1983) written by “adopted” daughter Dawn Langley Simmons.  This was an extraordinary tale that stayed with me in an unsettling way.  Dawn had started off  life as Gordon, although he had, if I remember the account rightly, both sets of genitalia.  In teenage years Simmons was rushed to hospital in agony with internal bleeding which turned out to be menstruation.  An operation was needed and Gordon was then Dawn and went on to marry and claimed to have had a baby.  Much of this has apparently now been refuted and Simmons called a fantasist and one of a number of people who exploited the naivety of Rutherford and her husband.  Merriman cites the 2004 publication “Peninsula Of Lies” by Edward Ball as the one that shatters the myths and I must seek that book out because this was one of the aspects which still confused me after reading this biography.

Margaret Rutherford (1892-1972) was one of the greatest British character actors of all time.  I read Merriman’s previous book on Hattie Jacques and that had been a very good read.  This is a man who knows and values his larger than life British character actresses.  This is a book that has been sat on my shelves for some time and I’ve been itching to get round to it.  (The Library Book Bingo I have been participating in gave me the chance).

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I think since Rutherford’s death it has been pretty much forgotten just how popular a performer she was and for a long period of time.  Perhaps now she is best remembered as the 1960’s Miss Marple in a series of films which appear quite regularly on television and which Agatha Christie was reputed to hate (fabulous theme music) but she had been a star for at least twenty years before that.  Her breakthrough came as the medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s play (and subsequent 1945 film) “Blithe Spirit”.  In 1963 she won Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the Burton/Taylor vehicle “The VIP’s” and in 1967 was made a Dame.

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Blithe Spirit

Merriman begins by exploring a family secret which had great repercussions for Rutherford’s outlook on life and her mental health.  He rattles through Margaret’s development as an actor and we get to sympathise that her  looks and appearance ruled out glamorous leading lady roles and throughout the book will on a lady who it seemed rarely said an unkind word to anyone and who was highly respected in the entertainment industry.  Margaret came as part of a double act.  She was married to actor Stringer Davis from 1945 to her death and she had it stipulated in contracts that he be given a part in her productions.  (“Spotting Stringer” is a good game to play in many of her movies.  In the Miss Marple films he was given perhaps his most meaty role of his career with the specially written-in Mr Stringer part).  He was absolutely devoted to her and relished the role of “Mr Rutherford”.  Merriman speculates a little as to whether the Davis/Rutherford match was all that it seemed but generally he’s a sympathetic biographer who mentions but tends to steer clear of stirring up any scandal.

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Husband and wife in “Murder Ahoy”

This is a good read and also a touching one.  Rutherford regularly checked herself in for electric shock treatments,  suffered mental health issues throughout her life, was probably manic depressive (bipolar in today’s jargon) and was taken for a ride by some people who managed to get close to her and Stringer.  Add to this her inability to deal with financial matters  and you’ll know that this comic genius had much sadness to endure.

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Margaret Rutherford: Dreadnought With Good Manners  was published by Aurum in 2009