Marple : twelve new stories

Title:

Author:

Christie, Agatha, 1890-1976, creator.

ISBN:

9780063136052

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Publication Information:

New York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2022]

Physical Description:

370 pages ; 24 cm

General Note:

"Originally published as Marple in the United Kingdom in 2022 by HarperCollins."--Title page verso.

Contents:

Evil in small places / Lucy Foley -- The second murder at the vicarage / Val McDermid -- Miss Marple takes Manhattan / Alyssa Cole -- The unravelling / Natalie Haynes -- Miss Marple's Christmas / Ruth Ware -- The open mind / Naomi Alderman -- The jade empress / Jean Kwok -- A deadly wedding day / Dreda Say Mitchell -- Murder at the Villa Rosa / Ella Griffiths -- The murdering sort / Karen M. McManus -- The mystery of the acid soil / Kate Mosse -- The disappearance / Leigh Bardugo -- About the authors.

Abstract:

A brand-new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Mystery's legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by 12 remarkable best-selling and acclaimed authors. This collection of 12 original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie's Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery ... Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Agatha Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930's The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie's last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by 12 Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time.

Personal Subject:

Marple, Jane (Fictitious character)-Fiction.

Subject Term:

Women detectives -- England -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Genre:

Detective and mystery fiction.

Short stories.

Added Author:

Christie, Agatha, 1890-1976,

Container of (work): Foley, Lucy (Novelist). Evil in small places.

Container of (work): McDermid, Val. Second murder at the vicarage.

Container of (work): Cole, Alyssa. Miss Marple takes Manhattan.

Container of (work): Haynes, Natalie. Unravelling.

Container of (work): Ware, Ruth. Miss Marple's Christmas.

Container of (work): Alderman, Naomi. Open mind.

Container of (work): Kwok, Jean. Jade empress.

Container of (work): Mitchell, Dreda Say. Deadly wedding day.

Container of (work): Griffiths, Ella, 1978- Murder at the Villa Rosa.

Container of (work): McManus, Karen M. Murdering sort.

Container of (work): Mosse, Kate, 1961- Mystery of the acid soil.

Container of (work): Bardugo, Leigh. Disappearance.

Document ID:

SD_ILS:2398847

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Collection	Collection	Call Number	Status
Searching... Beale Memorial Library (Kern Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Fiction	M FIC [CHRISTIE] [AGA] Mar	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Farmersville Branch Library (Tulare Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Fiction Area	MYST MARPLE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Gillis Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Area	Marple	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Hanford Branch Library (Kings Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Area	MYST MARPLE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Kern River Valley Branch (Kern Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Fiction	M FIC [CHRISTIE] [AGA] Mar	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Madera County Library (Madera Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Collection	Marple	Searching... Unknown
Searching... North Fork Branch (Madera Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Collection	Marple	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Politi Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Area	Marple	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stratford Branch Library (Kings Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Area	MYST MARPLE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Visalia Library (Tulare Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Fiction Area	MYST MARPLE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Woodward Park Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Mystery Area	Marple	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Each author captures Christie--and Marple--perfectly, while also displaying just a bit of her own unique touch. . . . This new and entertaining collection by some of our favorite writers will hook a new group of readers to the formidable Miss Marple." -- Rhys Bowen, Washington Post

"Marple is the best loved [detective]. Also the most influential. . . . It is Miss Marple who introduced the revolutionary notion that people are essentially the same wherever one goes." -- Los Angeles Times

Agatha Christie's legendary sleuth, Jane Marple, returns to solve twelve baffling cases in this brand-new collection, penned by a host of acclaimed authors skilled in the fine art of mystery and murder

One doesn't stop at one murder...

Jane Marple is an elderly lady from St Mary Mead who possesses an uncanny knack for solving even the most perplexing puzzles. Now, for the first time in 45 years, Agatha Christie's beloved character returns to the page for a globe-trotting tour of crime and detection.

Join Marple as she travels through her sleepy English village and around the world. In St Mary Mead, a Christmas dinner is interrupted by unexpected guests; the Broadway stage in New York City is set for a dangerous improvisation; bad omens surround an untimely death aboard a cruise ship to Hong Kong; and a bestselling writer on holiday in Italy is caught in a nefarious plot. These and other crimes committed in the name of love, jealousy, blackmail, and revenge are ones that only the indomitable Jane Marple can solve.

Bringing a fresh twist to the hallmarks of a classic Agatha Christie mystery, these twelve esteemed writers have captured the sharp wit, unique voice, and droll ingenuity of the deceptively demure detective. A triumphant celebration of Christie's legacy and essential reading for crime lovers, Marple is a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains one of the most famous detectives of all time.

Author Notes

One of the most successful and beloved writer of mystery stories, Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was born in 1890 in Torquay, County Devon, England. She wrote her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920, launching a literary career that spanned decades. In her lifetime, she authored 79 crime novels and a short story collection, 19 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language with another billion in 44 foreign languages. Some of her most famous titles include Murder on the Orient Express, Mystery of the Blue Train, And Then There Were None, 13 at Dinner and The Sittaford Mystery.

Noted for clever and surprising twists of plot, many of Christie's mysteries feature two unconventional fictional detectives named Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Poirot, in particular, plays the hero of many of her works, including the classic, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), and Curtain (1975), one of her last works in which the famed detective dies.

Over the years, her travels took her to the Middle East where she met noted English archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. They married in 1930. Christie accompanied Mallowan on annual expeditions to Iraq and Syria, which served as material for Murder in Mesopotamia (1930), Death on the Nile (1937), and Appointment with Death (1938).

Christie's credits also include the plays, The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution (1953; film 1957). Christie received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for 1954-1955 for Witness. She was also named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1971.

Christie died in 1976.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this disappointing anthology of authorized pastiches featuring Agatha Christie's Jane Marple, some contributors fail to play fair with readers by not sharing the clues the elderly amateur sleuth relies on, and almost none of the tales effectively display her gifts at understanding human nature. Standing head-and-shoulders above the rest is Lucy Foley's "Evil in Small Places," set in the small town of Meon Maltravers, where Miss Marple is visiting an old school friend. Her suspicion that such places may harbor "more terrible things" than in England's metropolises is borne out the night the community commemorates "the immolation of seventeen Protestant martyrs," when one person is found fatally stabbed, clutching an ominous threatening note. Lesser efforts include Alyssa Cole's gimmicky "Miss Marple Takes Manhattan" and Elly Griffith's "Murder at the Villa Rosa," in which Miss Marple describes Professor Moriarty as a murderer who was a brilliant loner, a characterization at odds with Conan Doyle's. Nothing in this volume matches Sophie Hannah's success in her novels featuring Christie's other iconic sleuth, Hercule Poirot. (Sept.)

Booklist Review

Twelve contemporary authors, all acclaimed crime writers, bring Agatha Christie's beloved Miss Jane Marple to print for the first time in 45 years, beautifully reinvigorating one of mystery fiction's most enduring sleuths. As Alyssa Cole puts it in "Miss Marple Takes Manhattan," one of the volume's highlights, "Miss Marple was always supposed to be in one place, as if she were a candlestick or a sofa cushion; however, she has the oddest habit of ending up exactly where she wanted to be instead." And so it is here, with Marple in New York in the 1950s, attending the dress rehearsal of a play based on a novel by her nephew, Raymond, who is appalled to learn that the play will be staged not on Broadway but on West Broadway, in a production directed by a blacklisted director. "Aunt Jane" is fine with all that but quickly senses that something is rotten in the wilds of downtown. So it is as well when she cruises to Hong Kong ("The Jade Empress," by Jean Kwok) and shrewdly susses out two shipboard murders. The stories set in Marple's beloved St. Mary Mead--Val McDermid's "The Second Murder at the Vicarage" and Ruth Ware's "Miss Marple's Christmas" among them--are equally attuned to our heroine's wry sagacity and to her ability to detect evil intent wherever it lurks, including under the mistletoe. A thoroughly entertaining collection for all Christie devotees.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Combining the enduring appeal of Miss Marple with some of today's most popular mystery writers could hardly go wrong, and it doesn't here.

Library Journal Review

Twelve female authors from several countries put their own spin on short stories featuring Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Crime fiction readers will recognize big names such as Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, Val McDermid, and Elly Griffiths. While some stories feature traditional settings such as Ware's "Miss Marple's Christmas" and McDermid's "The Second Murder at the Vicarage," others set the elderly spinster in unexpected territory. Jean Kwok's "The Jade Empress" has her on a cruise ship on the way to Hong Kong, and Alyssa Cole takes her to New York City in "Miss Marple Takes Manhattan." In all the stories, Miss Marple solves cases based on her observations of life and people in the village of St. Mary Mead. VERDICT Readers will be eager to try this anthology as a dozen celebrated crime fiction authors try their hand at writing traditional short stories featuring Christie's amateur sleuth. As in any collection, some stories stand out, but they all capture the character of the shrewd, always underestimated Miss Marple.--Lesa Holstine