Reviews - Murder at the Vicarage

3.6k reviews for:

Murder at the Vicarage

Agatha Christie

3.83 AVERAGE

josiejott's review against another edition

2.25

mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

allisonhollingsworth's review against another edition

4.25

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

”I know that in books it is always the most unlikely person. But I never find that rule applies in real life.” The first book in the Miss Marple series! The story opens from the POV of a vicar. He is quite annoyed with younger people, which includes his wife, Griselda, who is 20 years younger than him. They have a funny rapport tougher; Griselda suggests she could have married some younger and more handsome man but that she would just be a feather in their cap and she prefers to be with someone like the vicar who has an air of being superior but is actually madly in love with her. Despite this, the vicar does describe her as “irritating.” Christie does a good job of setting up their relationship to where I’m not really sure how committed they are to each other, which makes it easier for me to throw suspicion on both of them later in the story. Where Miss Marple comes in is that she lives in town and has tea with the ladies at the vicarage. Our vicar does not like her; he think she is too nosy. We find out during tea about a lot drama happening in this town. There is for example a woman who has moved in who lives by herself — very odd. There’s also a painter who is doing portraits and people think he’s having a thing with the daughter of a family he is painting. But one day the vicar walks in on the painter kissing the girl’s stepmother. (Marple called this.) The stepmother is obviously married and begs the vicar not to tell anyone and he agrees, but then one day the painter, Lawrence, abruptly tells the vicar he needs to leave. Shortly after, Mister Protheroe — the husband of the stepmother — winds up dead at the vicarage, and the vicar finds him and calls for the doctor and police. It’s determined that Protheroe has been murdered — shot in the head. Lawrence ends up going to the police and admitting guilt, but that seems too easy. Something else is going on here. Obviously the vicar knows that there is some motive — his wife was cheating on him, he wasn’t well liked, and even the vicar himself says on the first page of the book that anyone who murdered Protheroe would be doing the world a great service. This is hilariously done by Agatha Christie, of course. Anyway, the police find a turned over clock that signifies the time of death, but ignore the vicar when he tries to tell them that the clock runs 15 minutes past, putting the whole timeline up in the air. Then Mrs. Protheroe admits that she killed her husband with a gun, but that doesn’t add up either. Miss Marple says she ran into her before the murder and saw no gun and would have known if she had one. From here there is a lot speculation and the vicar and police talking to a lot of different people. Christie does an excellent job of making me think just about anyone could have done it. In the end, it’s Miss Marple, or course, who solves everything. She sees everything that happens, so of course she put it together. Turns out that Redding and Mrs. Protheroe are the ones who committed the murder; they did get everyone to believe their innocence when they so readily confessed. But that’s exactly what they wanted people to think. Turns out the woman who has showed up suddenly is the true mother of Lettice, Protheroe’s daughter, and he had forbid the two of them to reconnect. Now that he’s dead, she’ll be able to get to know her true mother, who is actually dying, which is really sad. And Griselda, who at one point I was entirely convinced was the murderer, was hiding a secret: that she’s pregnant! There’s a funny scene at the end where Marple implies that she knows it, dispute Griselda’s efforts to keep it a secret. But Miss Marple sees all! And the vicar now sees Miss Marple in a new light — he actually respects her more now after solving the murder. Another great twisty mystery from Christie, and while this is the first Marple book I’ve read, I feel it’s a great introduction to her character. She is not Poirot; Poirot takes pleasure in himself being the person who reveals the mystery at the end of the book; Marple is a bit more modest, at least in this first book. She doesn’t necessarily seem to want to take credit for finding everything out. Just because she’s very observant, she tends to do so. I like that difference between the two and can’t help but wonder what would happen if the two ever met. Can’t wait to continue more Marple stories!

beccah42's review against another edition

5.0

mysterious medium-paced

cradlow's review against another edition

4.25

mysterious

spookyscully's review against another edition

4.0

mysterious medium-paced

ddiazmoron's review against another edition

4.0

Puntuación 4,5/5 ⭐

Mi primera exposición a Miss Marple fue en "Miss Marple y Trece Problemas" y se convirtió en unos de mis libros favoritos, al saber que "Muerte de la vicaría" fue su primera aparición sabía que tenía que leerlo y valió la pena, "Muerte en la vicaría" me resultó encantador.

Encantador en el sentido que el ambiente que crea el pueblo de St. Mary Mead es cautivador. Con un montón de personajes y varios misterios, este pueblo hace que no sólo te interesé saber quién es el asesino, sino que también quieras saber que oculta cada persona de este pintoresco pueblo.

my_personal_escape's review against another edition

3.75

mysterious medium-paced

gillianengelbrecht's review against another edition

4.0

mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

marysaou's review against another edition

4.0

mysterious medium-paced

I’ve only read a couple of Agatha Christie books and wanted to change that. This one was characteristically clever, but there were many characters and occasionally I struggled to keep them straight. Still, a great (relatively quick!) read.

victoria27's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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