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Read by Alex Kingston, Adrian Scarborough, Adjoa Andoh, Imogen Stubbs, Alison Steadman, Jodhi May, Chipo Chung, Cathy Tyson, Ramon Tikaram, Tanya Reynolds, Celia Imrie and Miriam Margolyes. It feels very exciting to allow this formidable selection of authors the opportunity to come up with new adventures and mysteries for Miss Marple. It is time for readers to rediscover Marple and I personally cannot wait to read the resulting stories. When & Where Can You Get Marple: Twelve New Mysteries
Miss Marple’s Christmas by Ruth Ware-really captured the flavor of an old fashioned Christmas in St. Mary Mead-which would not be complete without a mysterious disappearance-really honoring the “feel” of the stories penned by Agatha Christie-Bravo! The bad news, of course, is that they're not stories penned by Agatha Christie herself. Sadly, it's been more than 45 years since Agatha Christie passed – meaning that unless somebody unearths a treasure trove of unpublished works, we're not getting any more originals.
🍪 Privacy & Transparency
This is a collection of twelve original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple written by top authors in their own right. The stories are written with many of the characteristics we have come to love but also the authors have put their own interpretation across making this an excellent read. I learned from the introduction that in 1927 Miss Jane Marple first arrived on the scene, and her final appearance was in Agatha Christie's last novel in 1976 - the year that Christie died. That's quite a legacy and how amazing that twelve different authors came up with a new story for her!
All of them five stars. These three seemed to have a little more substance and depth than the others, no mean feat in a short story! The others ranged from 3 - 4 stars, with only one at 2.5 stars.
BookBliss
A brave attempt to write Miss Marple stories to a similar level of ability but this is a very good effort. I would enjoy reading a similar book featuring one of Agatha Christie’s other characters Hercule Poirot.
I enjoyed the writing of each author, and I appreciated their creativity and their effort to pay an homage to one of my top favourite authors. Murder at the Villa Rose" by Elly Griffths (1 star)-No. It just went on and on and this is something that I can see swapping out Poirot for Miss Marple. It just doesn't even read as a Miss Marple story at all. And the ending was eyeroll inducing. There have been many adaptations of the Agatha Christie stories, on both the big screen and the small, but if you want to see how Ms. Christie envisioned her beloved character, tune into the BBC television series, “Miss Marple”. The 2nd story is The Second Murder at the Vicarage by Val McDermid, narrated by Adrian Scarborough.
The Jade Empress by Jean Kwok - There's a murderer aboard The Jade Empress, and the death is steeped in Chinese superstitions. I liked this one, although on reflection it's not entirely memorable. I liked the broadening of cultural references but it probably could have gone further. The mystery was well thought out, but thr ending does let it down a bit. 3.5/5. Miss Marple Takes Manhattan by Alyssa Cole - Miss Marple winds up seeing the bright lights of New York with her nephew and niece. I wasn't a fan of this one. It felt very out of character, nothing like a Marple story, and also there was no plot to speak of. 2/5. My favourite story was Miss Marples Christmas by Ruth Ware. It had all the elements of the classic tales, with the added bonus of Christmas. The Mystery of the Acid Soil was good, although not as good as the other 3 I've mentioned. It seemed a little silly, although it was very well constructed as a story, with believable characters. MY THOUGHTS: I love Miss Marple and largely enjoyed this collection of short stories involving my favourite knitting sleuth penned by both some of my favourite authors and some that were new to me.
The 11th story is The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse, narrated by Celia Imrie. I loved both the story and the narration. Murder at the Villa Rosa by Elly Griffiths - An author escapes to a picturesque Italian gateway to get some inspiration, and meets some very interesting people, including a certain Jane Marple. This felt very different in style to the others in the collection as Miss Marple is a secondary character although I liked the overall idea. 3.5/5. Since its publication in the United Kingdom, it has been issued in the USA, Germany, Israel, Holland, Poland and France and is due to be published in Italy, Hungary and Croatia.A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell - Marple enlists the help of Miss Bella to get to the bottom of a murder at a wedding reception. This one was, easily one of my favourites. It's a well thought out and executed mystery, and the addition of Miss Bella brings out Miss Marple's best observational skills. 4/5 Look its not that any of these stories is especially terrible. In fact a few A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell in which Miss Marple solves a particularly nasty poisoning at a wedding with the help of a friend who's basically her Caribbean doppelganger and The Disappearance where someone very close to Miss Marple (and familiar to anyone who's ever read one of her books) is responsible for the death of a nefarious young man, were clever and engaging enough to keep me guessing.
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