The Murder at the Vicarage: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries Book 1)

The first Miss Marple mystery, one which tests all her powers of observation and deduction.* Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe, declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, would be doing the world at large a favor! It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours laterwhen the Colonel is found shot dead in the clergymans study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. James Saxon delivers a memorable and absolutely masterful performance of Christie's first Miss Marple mystery. When the wildly unpopular Colonel Protheroe is found murdered in the vicar's study, it seems that everyonehis unhappy wife, his daughter, a visiting artist, an embittered poacher, the vicarhas a motive in a mystery that confounds the authorities, consumes the village and can only be untangled by observations and deductions of our heroine: the elderly gossip-cum-sleuth Miss Marple. Saxon's artful and enthusiastic portrayal of a host of charactersmale and female, guilty and innocent, young and oldwill delight Christie fans, mystery lovers and anyone lucky enough to listen. (June) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review Agatha Christie taught me two things: that plotting mysteries was an art, and that a woman detective could be as strong a character as a male detective. (Charles Todd, New York Times bestselling author of the Ian Rutledge mysteries and Bess Crawford mysteries ) When she really hits her stride, as she does here, Agatha Christie is hard to surpass. (Saturday Review of Literature ) ***Murder at the Vicarage (1930)is the first Miss Marple mystery book by Agatha Christie.*** Miss Jane Marple is a village busybody who applies human nature to crimes. Colonel Protheroe, magistrate universally despised, was shot in his study, unheard. His wife Anne admits newly arrived artist Lawrence Redding is an old flame, and both confess to murder. **The local inspector and Miss Marple sort through to the truth.** ***The murder of Colonel Protheroe shocks the town of St. Mary Mead, where the main entertainment is tea and gossip.*** Among the neighbors of St. Mary Mead, the most meddlesome, observant and shrewd person is Miss Marple. His intervention will be decisive in the resolution of a crime for which there are no suspects. ***Death in the vicarage, published in 1930, was the first appearance of one of the most important characters in the work of Agatha Christie, the spinster and insightful Miss Marple, whose cases have been adapted several times both to the cinema and in Form of television series.*** Athe Murder Of Colonel Protheroe -- Shot Through The Head -- Is A Shock To Everyone In St Mary Mead, Though Hardly An Unpleasant One. Now Even The Vicar, Who Had Declared That Killing The Detested Protheroe Would Be 'doing The World At Large A Favour, ' Is A Suspect -- The Colonel Has Been Dispatched In The Clergyman's Study, No Less. But The Picturesque English Village Of St Mary Mead Is Overpopulated With Suspects. There Is Of Course The Faithless Mrs Protheroe; And There Is Of Course Her Young Lover -- An Artist, To Boot. Perhaps More Surprising Than The Revelation Of The Murderer Is The Detective Who Will Crack The Case: 'a White-haired Old Lady With A Gentle, Appealing Manner.' Miss Jane Marple Has Arrived On The Scene, And Crime Literature's Private Men's Club Of Great Detectives Will Never Be The Same. Agatha Christie. 1st Harper Paperback Originally Published: London : Collins, 1930. The Murder at the Vicarage is Agatha Christie’s first mystery to feature the beloved investigator Miss Marple—as a dead body in a clergyman’s study proves to the indomitable sleuth that no place, holy or otherwise, is a sanctuary from homicide. Miss Marple encounters a compelling murder mystery in the sleepy little village of St. Mary Mead, where under the seemingly peaceful exterior of an English country village lurks intrigue, guilt, deception and death. Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing land-owner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone--even in the vicar--wishes he were dead. And very soon he is--shot in the head in the vicar's own study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer. When Colonel Protheroe is found dead from a single gun shot wound to the head, none of his neighbors in the village of St. Mary Mead is much surprised. So many people wished this local official would say farewell, if not quite so permanently. With suspects abound and the local police symied it is up to Miss Jane Marple to root out the killer . Colonel Protheroe, St. Mary Mead's most loathed magistrate, has been found shot through the head. But it isn't the "pompous old brute's" murder that raises eyebrows, but rather the scandalous secrets it exposes. Those secrets are about to put St. Mary Mead on a map - and send Miss Marple on the trail of a killer with something to hide