Between the Pages

This book is the first in Agatha Christie’s famous Miss Marple series and the third novel by Christie that I have read. I have a long way to go until I’ve read the rest of them and based on what I have read so far, I am looking forward to it!

When Colonel Protheroe is murdered in the local Vicar’s study, there are plenty of suspects – after all he was not a popular man in the small village of St Mary Mead, and tongues are set wagging. Miss Marple however is less interested in idle gossip and more interested in getting to the bottom of the case, and she applies her methodical thinking to solving the crime for which everyone seems to have an alibi.

What surprised me the most about this book is that Miss Marple is actually a fairly minor character in the story, at least until the end. The story is narrated by the Vicar Len Clement, and he himself gets involved in amateur sleuthing to try and uncover the murderer. He is a witty and self-deprecating character, and his observations about his fellow villagers are frequently very droll and amusing; I was actually surprised at how funny this book is.

But the story is essentially a murder mystery and as such it works very well. Just as with the Poirot book The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which I also read recently, I did not guess the murderer beforehand, and it helped that there were plenty of potential characters who could have done it (I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have guessed the murderer in And Then There Were None either, except that I watched a TV adaptation before reading the book).

I would definitely recommend this book to fans of the mystery genre – it’s more of a gentle pace then most thrillers, but if you enjoy whodunnits, I think this is definitely one to check out. I look forward to reading more Agatha Christie and soon!