Sleeping Murder

Almost at the end of my journey with Miss Marple and this one was really great. Miss Marple helps the wife of her young nephew deal with a recently revived memory of her having witnessed a murder as a child. The thing about this one is what is left unsaid, in this case, the unusual relation between the victim and her brother. Today we would just flat out say he molested her, but Christie has to talk around it and not state the obvious.

Gwenda and Giles Reed purchased Hillside House at Dillmouth in England, having immigrated from New Zealand. Gwenda meets Miss Marple at the theater, and faints after hearing a line in a play that evokes childhood memories. She may have witnessed a murder at age three. It has been eighteen years, but Gwenda wants to find out what happened, and Miss Marple has the perfect skills to help. Gwenda and Giles do some of the investigating while Miss Marple chats with locals over tea, with no one suspecting this older lady would be wise enough to put the puzzle pieces together. Christie drops hints along with a few red herrings. It flows well. The main drawback for me, as in most of these types of mysteries, is the whole “explanation” by the show more “smartest person in the room” at the end. I do not read many “whodunnits,” but this one was entertaining and not too gruesome. show less

“One always has hope for human nature”

Although I'm more of a Poirot groupie, I tried Sleeping Murder and Miss Marple's detective input on for size to see how it went. Better than the one I read with her salivating over rose gardens, it focused on a young couple who moved into a house and needed help solving a mystery, mainly of a memory of a murder that doesn't make sense.

It's not the classic whodunnit with a modern murder, and Miss Marple warns not to stir up the hornet's nest that is the past in the first place. When her advice is ignored, she feels obligated to help avoid future tragedy while old bones are dug up and laid to rest. This extra depth of psychology that sometimes the past is left buried even when it reveals the show more truth was potent.

It's a slower paced novel that focuses mainly on the couple with Miss Marple simply in the background as a supportive voice, ready to pop up in the end to offer an explanation when the villain is unmasked. I felt more of her personality was shown and she comes across likable in comparison than other stories I've read with her as lead crime-solver.

One thing that worked especially well was the surreal feel while the main viewpoint Gwenda goes from worrying she's losing her mind and questioning reality to being convinced a mystery is genuinely there. It takes awhile to know for sure, which was interesting since there are a few misleads and questions on her parentage and the house they're staying in. It's definitely a mystery that makes the house come alive as a focus point of the story, which adds an almost gothic charm.

The villain isn't impossible to guess, but the point of this mystery is more in the telling and discovering whether than the big reveal. show less

Newlywed Gwenda Reed has arrived in England with the goal of purchasing a house for herself and her husband, Giles, somewhere in the south of the country. As she tours the countryside she falls in love with Hillside near Dillsmouth. But as Gwenda lives in the house she is increasingly spooked by how familiar the house feels. While visiting distant relatives in London, with whom Miss Marple is also staying, a stray line in a play brings back horrific memories for Gwenda that seem to indicate a murder may have taken place in her home. While Miss Marple advises to leave everything be, Gwenda and Giles can't resist the mystery and so Miss Marple comes to town to keep the young couple from stumbling into too much trouble.

The final Miss show more Marple mystery is just as delightful as all that came before. While I did deduce the whodunnit just a page or two before the final reveal, the reading experience was in no way diminished. Christie's mysteries are always an excellent choice and I can't recommend them enough if British mysteries are at all your thing. show less

This is one of those books that I read as a teenager and forgot all about, except for little flashes of the story that stuck with me over the years. I'd also forgot it was an Agatha Christie until I rediscovered it maybe ten years later. Then yesterday I opened the ebook and realized all over again which book it was and was so ridiculously happy. I noticed all different things this time, not least how different my experience of reading the Miss Marple series is now that I'm in my late 40s. I hadn't noticed that Miss Marple never condemns sex or adultery and at some point remarks on how in her day they had every sort of indiscretion in St Mary Meade but they just called it a sin; they didn't tell people sex itself was wicked. I've read show more elsewhere that the 1910s-20s had so much hookup culture, then the prim 50s were the other end of the spectrum. I just didn't expect to read it in Agatha Christie. Makes me wonder what sex-positive film remake of her classics would look like. show less

The first couple of chapters are terrifying... especially if you read them home alone, in the dark. I must say, I enjoyed the thrill (as tame as my taste is). But after that it relaxed a bit and I finished the last couple of chapters happy in the knowledge that I had successfully pinpointed the murderer(but completely miffed the motive).

Miss Marple ends as she began, as a side character in her own story - and while I'm glad this wasn't the case in every single Miss Marple installment, I do love that it occurred to AC to write that way at all.

This one was good (though possibly better since I knew it was the last), and only a little jarring when Miss Marple arrives breathless from having "run violently up the back stairs." Knowing that this 'final' Miss Marple was written before several of the earlier books made it interesting to wonder what AC was thinking as she wrote [b:Nemesis|31304|Nemesis (Miss Marple, #11)|Agatha Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389760569l/31304._SY75_.jpg|908233], in which dear Jane could likely not show more have run at all, and certainly not with any level of violence.

As always, the fully-drawn side characters say things that I love, such as: "Anyway, this girl, Helen Kennedy, was, I suppose, very pretty. I didn't think so. I always thought her hair was touched up." show less