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fictionfan 's review for:
The Body in the Library
by Agatha Christie
When Dolly Bantry is woken by her hysterical maid one morning with the startling news that there’s a dead body in the library, at first she feels it must be a dream. It’s simply so unlikely! While waiting for the police to arrive, she phones her old friend Miss Marple who, when she and Mrs Bantry sneak into the library to look at the body, agrees that the dead girl doesn’t at all match her surroundings. The first job is to identify her, and news soon comes of a missing girl – young Ruby Keene, a dance hostess at a hotel in the nearby resort of Danemouth. Mrs Bantry persuades Miss Marple to accompany her to the hotel to do a little digging, for as she says...
“What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one's house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean.”
But it soon becomes clear to Dolly that unless the murder is quickly solved, popular sentiment will attribute the crime to Colonel Bantry; and he won’t be able to bear such a stain on his reputation…
How I love this book! I have no idea how often I’ve read it, but it must easily be in the double figures. Dolly Bantry is one of my favourite recurring characters in Christie’s novels and this is the one where she gets most space. The plot is great with some wonderful clues that you will almost certainly miss or misinterpret, but Miss Marple will see their significance! It touches on class issues, the changes in society that were already beginning in 1940s Britain, the loneliness that can affect the elderly as their young relatives make lives for themselves, the destructive nature of rumour and gossip, the vulnerability of the young to flattery. And Miss Marple is at her best, using her knowledge of human nature in the pursuit of justice for a dead girl that no one else seems to care much about. Wonderful stuff! If you want to try Miss Marple for the first time, this would be a great place to start!
NB This new edition of the book was provided for review by the publisher, HarperCollins.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
“What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one's house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean.”
But it soon becomes clear to Dolly that unless the murder is quickly solved, popular sentiment will attribute the crime to Colonel Bantry; and he won’t be able to bear such a stain on his reputation…
How I love this book! I have no idea how often I’ve read it, but it must easily be in the double figures. Dolly Bantry is one of my favourite recurring characters in Christie’s novels and this is the one where she gets most space. The plot is great with some wonderful clues that you will almost certainly miss or misinterpret, but Miss Marple will see their significance! It touches on class issues, the changes in society that were already beginning in 1940s Britain, the loneliness that can affect the elderly as their young relatives make lives for themselves, the destructive nature of rumour and gossip, the vulnerability of the young to flattery. And Miss Marple is at her best, using her knowledge of human nature in the pursuit of justice for a dead girl that no one else seems to care much about. Wonderful stuff! If you want to try Miss Marple for the first time, this would be a great place to start!
NB This new edition of the book was provided for review by the publisher, HarperCollins.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com