Marple: Twelve New Mysteries

A set of 12 authors each provided a short Miss Marple story in this anthology. As with any anthology, it is a mixed bag. Some tried a bit to hard to be different, moving Miss Marple to New York, Italy or a boat to Hing King, each of which felt a bit too far fetched to work. Other stuck more closely to home and they fared better. In one instance the voice of the teller was the first person, in this case the vicar finding yet another body in his house. There were a few quite successful ones with MIss Marple in a village location with an old friend each time. The most successful was by Natalie Haynes, and was the one that I was sure I'd read before, it had Miss Marple at Gossington Hall with Dolly & Arthur Bantry, Henry Clithering, Raymond show more & Joan. The missing jewels were carefully hidden, and I was sure I'd read that hiding place before - and I was right, as it was inspired by a book that the jewel thieves' nephew was reading and I have also read. It was very cleverly done, used a known setting and known characters and a borrowed plot. Simple but effective.
It was interesting that while some of the stories made reference to Miss Marple's youth, none tried to set a story in her younger days, she remains a little old lady in each of these stories. Maybe we can't imagine her any other way. show less

For the first time in forty-five years, one of the best sleuths in all of crime fiction returns to investigate twelve new cases in Marple. Twelve authors put their own personal spin on beloved elderly spinster Jane Marple, making this quite enjoyable to read.

Readers get to revisit the vicarage, Gossington Hall, and other places in England, but they also get to see Jane solve crimes on Broadway in New York City, on Cape Cod, in Hong Kong, and on the Amalfi Coast in Italy-- mostly thanks to her nephew the novelist.

All the stories are winners, and I have to admit that I do like how Miss Marple was "updated" by showing her help a young Chinese woman and an interracial couple. Even faces familiar to Marple fans are seen in a different show more light.

It was obvious to me that all the authors had fun writing their stories, but some seemed to have a bit more fun than others, and their stories really shone. Which ones? Val McDermid with her "The Second Murder at the Vicarage"; Elly Griffiths' "Murder at the Villa Rosa"; Karen M. McManus' "The Murdering Sort"; and Leigh Berdugo's "The Disappearance". These were my particular favorites although-- as I said-- all the stories are good.

This anthology breathes some life into Miss Jane Marple. Her deductive capabilities shine, and the authors made me laugh several times, especially when one mentioned the fact that all of Miss Marple's relatives could be assured of receiving one of her knitted blankets at one time or another.

Fans of Miss Marple should enjoy this anthology, and I wouldn't be surprised if she gains new devotees who experience her talents for the first time. show less

Twelve writers have maintained their own unique style while capturing Christie's Miss Marple accurately, and without resorting to parody. These intriguing murderous puzzles are as delicious as Christie's own. Some even include Christie-like blinkered expression, suggesting prejudice. Just like any collection of short stories, including Dame Christie's own, some were better than others although I enjoyed all of them. My favourite was The Second Murder in the Vicarage by Val McDermid.

I am not a lover of short stories and haven't read Christie for many a year but I was intrigued by the idea of this book. The stories are very much a mixed bag. The best are true to the original in terms of setting or are ones in which Miss Marple is a very tangential figure. The less successful are the stories which try to bring us too far into the future or which focus more on 'woke' themes in order to be politically correct. As with all anthologies the reader can skip through the less satisfying episodes without a shred of remorse and I'm afraid I did that. Funnily enough, my favourites were written by authors I am already familiar with and whose work I enjoy!

This is an anthology of short mystery stories starring Miss Marple, written by various authors. As with most anthologies, I enjoyed some stories more than others. My favourites were the stories by Alyssa Cole and Leigh Bardugo, which really captured Miss Marple's character and were well-constructed mysteries, and also brought something new to the character. I also really enjoyed the stories by Lucy Foley and Kate Mosse.
I liked the characters and the story in both Jean Kwok and Karen M. McManus's stories, but in both cases found the reveal of the murderer was disappointing and wasn't set up enough. Overall, the collection was worth reading for any Agatha Christie fans.

Miss Marple Returns!
Review of the William Morrow paperback & Kindle editions (September 5, 2023) of the William Morrow hardcover original (September 13, 2022).

[45/60 Average = 3.75/5 rounded up to a GR 4]
These 12 new stories by various contemporary authors feature Agatha Christie's amateur senior sleuth Miss Marple back to solve what are otherwise inexplicable mysteries. I was already familiar with more than half of the writers, who are not all otherwise known for mysteries or detective stories. On the whole everyone did a fair to excellent job.

In the kind, warm glow of the fire the marks of old age were flatteringly blurred. Jane Marple was so little changed, in the important details, from her girlhood self. The quick, birdlike

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manner, the bright, inquisitive eyes, the sense of a quiet, perhaps even formidable intelligence.

My favourites ***** were the ones that had Miss Marple back on her home ground in the village of St. Mary Mead (#2, #5 & #12). #8 was my other favourite, for a very clever plot which included a Caribbean-based amateur sleuth as Miss Marple's partner in crime-solving. Many of the others had Miss Marple travelling to various exotic locations, always funded by her generous nephew Raymond West, which admittedly is still in keeping with the canon (i.e. A Caribbean Mystery).

#10 was a bit of an odd-ball story in that it had Miss Marple visiting with her nephew Raymond West's grand-daughter. I think most would picture Miss Marple in the original stories (1927 to 1976) as a permanent or slowly aging 60 to 80 years old. Jumping an entire 2 generations would seem to add 40 years or so to her age i.e. making her 100 to 120 years old. Or, perhaps like the best of fictional characters, she is simply immortal😊.

1. Evil in Small Places by Lucy Foley. **** Miss Marple visits an old school colleague when the local choir leader is found murdered.

2. The Second Murder at the Vicarage by Val McDermid. ***** A sequel to the 1st Miss Marple novel The Murder at the Vicarage with many of the same characters. McDermid captures the atmosphere of the original very well.

3. Miss Marple Takes Manhattan by Alyssa Cole. *** Miss Marple joins her nephew Raymond West and his wife Joan in a trip to NYC to attend the opening of a theatrical adaptation of his first novel. An apparent death occurs at the theatre dress rehearsal.

4. The Unravelling by Natalie Haynes. **** A man appears on a family doorstep and is later murdered for no apparent reason. I had expected that this one would somehow tie-into Greco-Roman classical myths based on my other readings of Natalie Haynes, but it didn’t. It did however tie-in to a rather famous historical court case from the middle ages 🤐 .

5. Miss Marple’s Christmas by Ruth Ware. ***** Miss Marple spends Christmas with her nephew Raymond and his wife Joan visiting her. They attend Christmas dinner at the Bantrys, along with several others, when a jewelry theft occurs.

6. The Open Mind by Naomi Alderman. *** Miss Marple attends a Founders’ Dinner at St. Bede College when an apparent murder occurs.

7. The Jade Empress by Jean Kwok. *** Miss Marple is on a cruise to Hong Kong on the Jade Empress cruise line when a murder occurs on board the ship.

8. A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell. ***** Miss Marple attends a wedding where one of the guests is apparently poisoned. The groom’s parents want to cover up that a death has occurred.

9. Murder at the Villa Rosa by Elly Griffiths. ** Probably the oddest story in the collection. A writer who is apparently planning a murder goes on a vacation to the Villa Rosa where he meets a strange collection of people including Miss Marple. Once the reveal comes it is a bit of a letdown.

10. The Murdering Sort by Karen M. McManus. *** Miss Marple is again on vacation in Cape Cod with her nephew Raymond’s grand-daughter(? This seems like a completely unrealistic jump in generations) Nicola. A friend of Nicola asks Miss Marple to investigate why her family’s patriarch is suspicious of his family trying to murder him.

11. The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse. *** Miss Marple meets a curate on a train and is asked to help find his missing girlfriend.

12. The Disappearance by Leigh Bardugo. ***** Miss Marple is called back from a London trip by her old friend Mrs. Bantry who is living in the Lodge at her old residence Gossington Hall. The scion of the new owners has gone missing with the family jewels. Also, the body of a local girl has been found, a suicide or murder?

I could not properly utilize the Berengaria Ease of Solving Scale® for these mysteries. In short stories the reveal comes along so soon that you really have no time to analyze or ponder the clues. I would thus rate all of these at the high end of the scale as 8s to 10s (i.e. almost impossible to solve by the reader), even if the bad 'un may be somewhat obvious due to Ebert's Law of the Economy of Characters. show less

Warning Flag #1: There is no listed editor for this anthology. Warning Flag #2: The “copyright page” consists of citing Agatha Christie Ltd., with no indication of copyright for the actual authors of the stories in this volume. Warning Flag #3: While less indicative of warning, although the “about the authors” section describes each of these 12 writers as best-selling writers, I’ve only heard of a handful of them. This doesn’t mean the descriptions are inaccurate, of course, but I read a lot of mysteries, and a lot of British mysteries, and to have such a high percentage of unknown-to-me writers claiming to be best-sellers is a little odd. All of that out of the way, what about the stories? Well, some were quite good; I show more liked Ruth Ware’s “Miss Marple’s Christmas,” Naomi Alderman’s “The Open Mind,” Dreda Say Mitchell’s “A Deadly Wedding Day,” and Elly Griffiths’ “Murder At the Villa Rosa.” In most of the other stories, though, the sleuth could have been anybody - they’re just not Miss Marple specific, so to speak. And in one, not only does Miss Marple travel to NYC, but she travels to an NYC where HUAC (early 1950s), Jackie Kennedy (early 1960s) and the title “Ms.” (mid-1970s) are all contemporaneous, which is pure sloppiness.. For Miss M completists only, and then only for the few I mentioned. show less