Wherefore Art Thou, Marple?

I am so far behind on the Marplethon. I don’t know how it happened. One minute I had all the time in the world, the next minute it had been almost a year. Time doesn’t just fly, it hauls ass.

On the bright side, I finished two other books from the list: Nemesis and The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been so long since I read them that I don’t have much to say. Here’s a little something to give you an idea what they’re about.

Nemesis by Agatha Christie
Grade: A-

Nemesis is sort of a sequel to A Caribbean Mystery, which I also enjoyed. In this story, one of the characters that Miss Marple met on her vacation in the Caribbean has since died. He left her an intriguing letter, asking her to use her sleuthing abilities to look into an old murder case, but without telling her whose murder to investigate! She accepts and, as always, rises to the challenge. I was fooled into suspecting the wrong character. When the happens, but you don’t feel that the author cheated, it is the mark of a good mystery.

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
Grade: B+

In The Murder at the Vicarage, Miss Marple is portrayed as an interfering busybody, which is perhaps part of why I just can’t make myself love it. A disagreeable man is found murdered in the study of the local vicar. Everyone is a suspect, even the vicar, but with Miss Marple’s talents, which include gossip and eavesdropping, the murderer is sure to be found.

Now here is an updated Marplethon list.

1. 4.50 From Paddington
2. At Bertram’s Hotel
3. The Body in the Library
4. A Caribbean Mystery
5. Greenshaw’s Folly (short story published in Double Sin and Other Stories)
6. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
7. Miss Marple’s Final Cases, which includes Miss Marple Tells a Story, Sanctuary, and the 4 Marple stories from Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
8. The Moving Finger
9. The Murder at the Vicarage
10. A Murder Is Announced
11. Nemesis
12. A Pocket Full of Rye
13. Sleeping Murder
14. They Do It With Mirrors
15. The Thirteen Problems (a.k.a. The Tuesday Club Murders), which includes The Tuesday Night Club, The Idol House of Astarte, Ingots of Gold, The Bloodstained Pavement, Motive vs. Opportunity, The Thumb Mark of St. Peter, The Blue Geranium, The Companion, The Four Suspects, A Christmas Tragedy, The Herb of Death, The Affair at the Bungalow, Death by Drowning
16. Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, which includes the following Marple stories: Strange Jest, The Tape-Measure Murder, The Case of the Perfect Maid, The Case of the Caretaker

I reordered the list to remove all the repeats and separate the short stories from the novels. I also removed Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Life and Times as it turns out to be by Anne Hart, and while it may be interesting, it isn’t a necessary part of the Marplethon.

My path to the finish line is much clearer now. I have only four novels and three short stories left. I don’t know if I can finish them all in so little time (the deadline being Christie’s birthday, September 15th), but I’m certainly going to try!