Another Miss Marple mystery with so many scoundrel men who tom-cat around. An old Major starts a story of a killer man to Miss Marple and reaches into his wallet to show her a picture. Suddenly, his attention lapses and Miss Marple never sees the picture. The next day, Major Palgrave succumbs to his high blood pressure or has a killer silenced him? The cast of characters includes many tried and true individuals. But who has motive to kill? The body count increases as the maid Victoria and the beautiful Lucky Dyson follow the same fate as Major Palgrave. Miss Marple and her assistant, Jason Rafiel, rush to find the killer before another body joins the list. A light-hearted book and a look at the past that continues to plague the guilty. ( )

Miss Marple Takes a Vacation, but Murder does not
Review of the HarperCollins Audiobook edition (March 26, 2013) narrated by Emilia Fox of the Collins Crime Club (UK) hardcover (November 16, 1964) & the Dodd, Mead & Company (US) hardcover (1965) originals.

“I told you wrong. I was completely wrong. I was stupid beyond belief. Major Palgrave appeared to me to be looking over my right shoulder, glaring, in fact, at something—But he couldn’t have seen anything, because he was looking through his left eye and his left eye was his glass eye.”

A Caribbean Mystery finds Miss Marple on a gifted holiday, thanks to her author nephew Raymond West, on the fictional island of St. Honoré in the Caribbean. The trip and the location are supposedly inspired by Agatha Christie's own vacation to either Barbados or St. Lucia according to the Agatha Christie Wiki.

While socializing with the other guests, Miss Marple listens to Major Palgrave tell a story about having a photograph of a murderer when he is abruptly distracted. The next morning the Major is found dead in his room, apparently from an accidental overdose. Miss Marple has her doubts though, and so does another guest, the millionaire Jason Rafiel. Then a resort worker is murdered and the resort's hostess/owner starts to act unbalanced. Will Marple and Rafiel be able to prevent any further murders?

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/A_Caribbean_Mystery_First_Edition...
The front cover of the original 1964 Collins Crime Club (UK) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

For a change of pace, I listened to the audiobook edition this time, having read all of the other Miss Marples in print or digital previously. The narration by Emilia Fox (from TV's Silent Witness,Signora Volpe et al) was excellent in all voices, performing especially well in the male voice of Jason Rafiel and with the occasional Caribbean accents for the locals.

On the Berengaria Ease of Solving Scale® I found A Caribbean Mystery to be on the middle range of the scale i.e. a 5 out of 10 or so. You could make a deduction leap due to the Major's glass eye if you were paying attention. That somewhat narrowed it down.

Trivia and Links
A Caribbean Mystery was adapted for a U.S. TV movie in 1983 starring Helen Hayes as Miss Marple. The screenplay was written by novelist Sue Grafton in one of her final works as a TV writer before her Kinsey Millhone alphabet series (1982-2017) took off. You can watch the entire movie on YouTube here (it is mis-labelled as a 1985 film though). This version was filmed in California.

A Caribbean Mystery was adapted twice for English language television. Both versions are reasonably faithful to the original. The 2013 ITV adaptation adds cameo roles for portrayals of the author Ian Fleming and ornithologist James Bond. 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 TV adaptation was as part of the BBC's Miss Marple (1984-1992) series as Episode 10 in 1989, which starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. This adaptation sets the location in Barbados and is actually filmed on site.

The second TV adaptation was as part of ITV's Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004-2013) reboot series as Season 6 Episode 1 in 2013 which starred Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple. This adaptation was filmed in Capetown, South Africa. ( )

disappointing but not that surprising that even in 1964 the racism is strong in this one. the mystery itself is pretty enjoyable, with possibilities, suspicious characters, and red herrings all over the place. much of the action wasn't even in miss marple's hands, and it only felt like a miss marple mystery toward the end, but i thought that was kind of fun. ( )

Miss Marple is on vacation in the Caribbean. She is immediately suspicious when Major Palgrave dies. She sets out to solve the mystery. I had seen a version of this on TV so I knew an important plot point. I kept waiting for Miss Marple to realize it. ( )

its rare that i get disappointed with a christie...i mean, its still good...but it felt a bit too contrived and the final solution sounds logical but felt rushed and unsatisfying. ( )