The Last from 2009

Here is the last of the 2009 books (phew!).

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
Grade: B+

Morning has come and what a day is in store for Colonel and Mrs. Bantry, because there’s a dead body in their library! Mrs. Bantry immediately calls upon her old friend, Miss Marple, to solve the mystery before the community’s suspicions become permanently fixed on Colonel Bantry.

The back cover of this paperback quotes The New York Times. It says, “In the upper brackets of excellence.” But whether it meant Christie in general or this book in particular, I do not know. Both are good. It is possible, though, that some of my enjoyment of this book was diminished by my having read it before. I am looking forward to reading more of the Marple mysteries that are completely new to me.

Odds and Ends

beer and skittles: fun, or a pleasant situation.

Cophetua complex: in the medieval romance called “The King and the Beggar-Maid,” Cophetua was a king that fell in love at first sight with a beggar, thus this phrase describes an older gentleman who falls for a poor, young girl.

point-to-point: a type of cross-country horse race.

retroussé: the victim was described as having a “retroussé nose,” which means that it was turned up at the end, like a pug nose.

And here is the Marplethon list as it stands now.

MISS MARPLE STORIES

  1. 4.50 From Paddington
  2. The Affair at the Bungalow
  3. Agatha Christie’s Marple The Life and Times
  4. At Bertram’s Hotel
  5. The Bloodstained Pavement
  6. The Blue Geranium
  7. The Body in the Library
  8. A Caribbean Mystery
  9. The Case of the Caretaker
  10. The Case of the Perfect Maid
  11. A Christmas Tragedy
  12. The Companion
  13. Death by Drowning
  14. The Four Suspects
  15. Greenshaw’s Folly
  16. The Herb of Death
  17. The Idol House of Astarte
  18. Ingots of Gold
  19. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
  20. Miss Marple Tells a Story
  21. Miss Marple’s Final Cases
  22. Motive vs. Opportunity
  23. The Moving Finger
  24. The Murder at the Vicarage
  25. A Murder Is Announced
  26. Nemesis
  27. A Pocket Full of Rye
  28. Sanctuary
  29. Sleeping Murder
  30. Strange Jest
  31. Tape-Measure Murder
  32. They Do It With Mirrors
  33. The Thirteen Problems
  34. Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
  35. The Thumb Mark of St. Peter
  36. The Tuesday Night Club

P.S. There seems to be an error in the list. Three Blind Mice and Other Stories includes four stories that are listed separately, so the count should be 35 rather than 36.

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One Response to The Last from 2009

  1. chick says:

    Actually, it appears there is another mistake in the list. “The Thirteen Problems” is just another title under which “The Tuesday Club Murders” was published. This list was quite misleading. It’s bad enough that including all the short story titles made it look much longer than it actually was, but to include the titles of the books from which they came, that’s just not right. The Marplethon isn’t turning out to be as challenging as I thought it would be, so I will have to stretch it out. Some of the ideas I’m playing with are finding and/or making things mentioned in the stories (seed cake, for example) and reading one of Christie’s biographies, as well as her autobiography.

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