Marple Retrospective #3 - Sleeping Murder

Marple Retrospective #3 - Sleeping Murder

Another Miss Marple was on sale recently, so I picked it up. It was an interesting read, and better than the last Marple (Pocket Full of Rye). 

One thing I've noticed: Christie takes more chances with Marple books. They are more stylish, more experimental, and a little more ... modern? Poirot books seem rooted in the aristocratic British traditions, to a large extent. Marple books are earthier and feature a lot more blue collar characters and commentary on how Britain is changing. 

Not that Poirot books don't do this, but not as much as these last couple have. However there are three times as many Poirot books as Marple ones, so I guess that Christie is more interested in Poirot's universe. 

This one also has an unusual writing history: Christie wrote it during the Blitz in 1940. Assuming she would be killed in the bombing, she wrote this rapidly and then had it stored in a bank vault along with a statement giving all rights to her husband, as a financial safeguard for him in the event of her death. She did the same for her daughter with a Poirot novel (Curtain).

Then, in her last few years, she asked for copies of the two manuscripts and began revising and modernizing them. Curtain was published not long before her death; Sleeping Murder was published posthumously, and is the last "official" Christie. 

Here is the plot in a nutshell: young couple from New Zealand moves to England for husband's work. They are quite wealthy from family inheritances, and buy a seaside cottage in Devon (SW English coast, where Agatha Christie grew up). The wife slowly realizes she lived in this very same house as a young child ... and that she thinks she remembers a dead body in the hallway. But there are no murders reported during that time!

She and the husband investigate, and Miss Marple - a friend of a friend - decides they are in over their heads and begins "assisting" them (read: solving the whole thing and gently giving them hints). Marple is fantastic in this, as she pulls all kinds of old lady tricks to get information left and right. 

This is one of a few "cold case" mysteries I've read by Christie - the most notable being the outstanding Poirot novel Five Little Pigs. But unlike that novel, I guessed the murderer and motive here very early on - I immediately sensed what Christie was up to, and felt as the book unfolded like I had a good handle on her repeated red herrings and misdirections. 

All in all a very good novel - it bumps Pocket Full of Rye down the list a bit and replaces it as one of the better Christie novels. I'm basically just buying the Christie novels as they appear on sale, and the next one is another Marple. I also picked up a cheap paperback Poirot (The Clocks) and will be reading that one soon as well.