A good solid cozy. I liked this more than some of her work or maybe I was just more in the right mood for it. Either way, Miss Marple is as clever as ever as a student of human nature. ( )

The title says it all. Cluedo in a book. It's many many years since I've read a Miss Marple mystery. It was fun to be swept back to an era where the Country House complete with servants was A Thing, where village life was peopled by old ladies, intelligent but under occupied, rendered spinster by WW1.
This time, a body has been found in the library of the country house, but the actual murder must have taken place elsewhere. Any number of police are called in to deal with this event, and of course Miss Marple too. A vast cast of characters wander in and out of the narrative - I found it a bit hard to keep track. I don't think it's exactly a spoiler alert to tell you that Miss Marple cracks the mystery. It was all good period fun, and I enjoyed this book - but not enough to pick up another Agatha Christie for a while. ( )

In this novel Christie sets out to, as she explains in her foreword, put a new spin on what was even in her day a hoary old cliche of detective novels: the dead body in the library. She succeeds by drawing out the wry humour in the characters, Miss Marple's lively friend Dolly and her retired Colonel husband in whose library said body was found, and by placing a twist into the story. Although I did remember what it was, from watching the TV adaptation with the incomparable Joan Hickson some years ago, it didn't spoil things as I didn't recall who the murderer might be. Part of the fun is reading about the prejudices of the various social classes of the time in which the story is set. Dolly calls upon her old friend Jane Marple because, apart from the frisson she experiences from being caught up at a safe removal from the murder, she is perfectly aware that her husband will be suspected of being implicated and will very shortly be snubbed by all and sundry in their very provincial community. So there are real stakes in Miss Marple not just identifying the culprit - and we know that she has done so pretty early on without being let in on the secret - but more importantly, proving it.

Not quite a 5 star read, because quite a bit of it is from the viewpoint of various senior policemen - there are rather a lot of them - who aren't really differentiated from a character viewpoint. I think, without seeing the TV adaptation again, that some of them must have been merged for dramatic purposes and also rather more made of the role of Inspector Slack and the comic possibilities of bringing him into a clash with Miss M, which doesn't really happen in this novel. But an easy page-turning read and therefore worthy of 4 stars. ( )

Typical Christie - competently and entertainingly written, lots of misdirection, decent wrap up that makes sense. Not sure it'd have been reasonable to guess the solution in this one - although I did see one of the main clues from the start - which is a bit disappointing but it's not a big deal. Pretty good but not spectacular or anything. ( )

The Body Snatcher
Review of the William Morrow Paperbacks edition (2022) of the Dodd, Mead & Co. (US)/Collins Crime Club hardcover originals (1942)

“Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid spinsterish face, and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it as all in the day’s work. Her name’s Miss Marple. She comes from the village of St. Mary Mead, which is a mile and a half from Gossington, she’s a friend of the Bantrys—and where crime is concerned she’s the goods.”

The Body in the Library is quite diabolical for a so-called "cozy". A murdered girl is found in the library of Mr. & Mrs. Bantry, both of whom have never seen her before in their lives. Meanwhile another girl from the village has gone missing. Then a stolen car is discovered burnt out with a corpse inside it. There is nothing to be done, except call in Miss Marple to sort out the suspects and the victims. The authorities, as usual, are lost without her.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f5/The_Body_in_the_Library_US_First_...
The front cover of the original 1942 Dodd, Mead & Company (US) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

Confusion for Completists
The Body in the Library is the 2nd Miss Marple novel. Some lists, including the Goodreads Miss Marple Listopia, count it as Miss Marple #3 as the short story collection The Thirteen Problems (1932) is counted as #1 only because some of those stories appeared in 1927.

Trivia and Links
The Body in the Library was adapted twice for English language television. Both of the adaptations are reasonably faithful to the original plot. I did not find any free trailers or postings of either of them, but they are both available on the Britbox streaming service here in Canada.
The first adaptation was as part of the BBC's Miss Marple (1984-1992) series as Season 1 Episodes 1 to 3 in 1984 which starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.

The second adaptation was as part of ITV's Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004-2013) reboot series as Season 1 Episode 1 in 2004 which starred Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. Although faithful to the book for about 95% of the time, this version makes a switch in the final reveal about which it would be a spoiler to say more.

There was a French language adaptation for the Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie [French: The Little Murders of Agatha Christie] (2009 - ongoing) series. The episode based on The Body in the Library was Season 1 Episode 9's Un Cadavre sur l'Oreille (2011).This series does not feature a Miss Marple character and instead has a police detective and a reporter as the leads. The plots are transplanted to France and are considerably changed from the originals.

There was a Korean language TV adaptation for the Ms. Ma, Nemesis (2018) limited series. There were 32 episodes to this series which adapted several Miss Marple stories including The Body in the Library into a modern day plot of an prison escapee who seeks to clear her own name of her daughter’s murder and solves that and other crimes in the process. The lead role was played by Yunjin Kim, best known to English language television from the TV series Lost (2004-2010). ( )