Even today, Agatha Christie still outsells nearly all other crime fiction writers and our fascination with her clever, quiet amateur detective, Miss Jane Marple, is evergreen. That is obvious from the continuing popularity of the TV series, even as the batten is handed between actors assuming the role. The aged female detective seems to endear herself to new audiences generation after generation.
Clearly the appetite for Miss Marple is not sated but do we need a book that explores the character, the novels and short stories, their creation and popular appeal? Mark Aldridge, who has already written two books on Christie, one about Poirot and the other on her characters on screen, thinks so. What will readers get out of it?
Everyone thinks they know Marple, the spinster, the Victorian woman, the resident of St Mary Mead, who is also an expert in psychology and crime solving. Some equate the character with Christie herself but Aldridge’s deep dive into the origins of the character shows how shallow that impression might be. Marple is not Christie, who was 37 when she first came up with the elderly detective.
Marple first appeared in short stories in December 1927 and 1928, The Tuesday Night Club (The Tuesday Club Murders) introduced six characters meeting to solve the mysteries they bring to the table. Modern readers will of course recognise the inspiration for Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club.
Unlike Poirot, Marple is not a show-off but her lack of ego should not be underestimated. She is intelligent and sharp. Aldridge says that despite Christie denying she was a feminist, the author created several very strong female characters – Marple most of all. And all at a difficult time for her as her mother had just died, her husband left her for another woman and that led to the infamous 10 day disappearance which seems to have been the result of a breakdown. Perhaps writing was her way of dealing with the world again. By 1930, when the first Marple novel, The Murder at the Vicarage, came out Christie was happy in a relationship again, with archaeologist Max Mallowan.
As well as exploring the plot of the novels Aldridge gives us a wealth of information on how they were received. Of course, it was mostly positive but not necessarily the same both sides of the Atlantic.
Readers will know Marple novels are short, one not much more than 50,000 words, and we learn Christie was a lover of dialogue and of clues but not of exposition. As readers came to love Marple on the radio and on stage, eventually film followed. Aldridge describes the 60s as a golden decade as Marple hit the big screen thanks to Margaret Rutherford.
Aldridge breaks down the Marple stories into decades which enables readers to grasp the growing hold of the books and other media representations. Miss Marple gets older but also renews for readers of new generations. The period setting of the stories was changed for screen to accommodate modern tastes.
The Marple story is set in the context of Christie’s writing career including Poirot, the two characters making Christie a phenomenon, with an estimated two billion books sold. Christie was writing Marple until her death in 1976, even in ill health.
Of course, that was not the end for Marple. June Whitfield played her on the radio in the 1980s and Angela Lansbury, Helen Hayes, Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwan all had TV series. We all have our favourite and this is a fascinating part of the book. Finally, Aldridge wonders whether, out from the shadow of Poirot, Marple might have her own blockbuster film production.
This book is fascinating not just for the wealth of knowledge and insight Aldridge delivers but for the easy, non-academic way it is presented. It reads smoothly with an eye for detail that will intrigue readers, not just scholars. Yet it has enough about it to embolden any reader to feel like an expert on the subject of Marple after reading.
There are very few writers with characters interesting enough to tackle in this way. Fleming and Bond of course, Reacher (Heather Martin talks about her biography of Lee Child here) and Marple certainly. I was immersed in Marple’s world here and I loved it. Do I understand the enduring love for Marple better now? I think so. This is never less than entertaining and constantly fascinating and I’m not a great Christie devotee. There’s a foreword by Lucy Fole and the index and notes will take anyone keen enough to further reading.
I would suggest this is a perfect gift for a fan of Marple in print or on television, if they have a curious beyond reading/watching the stories. They may not know they want it yet but I can’t imagine it being discarded once opened. A Marple treasure trove.
Harper Collins
Print/Kindle
£14.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
