Miss Jane Marple: "..the finest detective God ever made."

I first published this review October 6, 2010

Agatha Christie, the creator of Miss Jane Marple, is the greatest mystery writer - EVER!!!  Rather than focus on one of her books, I've chosen to blog on one of her characters. - And Miss Jane Marple is quite a character!  She is an elderly spinster living in St Mary Mead. She's nosy, gossipy and has a 6th sense for detecting murderers.  She is stereotypical in her tweed skirts and with her knitting. She often seems befuddled but is very shrewd and misses nothing.

In her early appearances she wasn't very nice but as Christie develops her character she becomes a bit more modern. At least for someone "..born at the age of 65 to 70."  She also becomes kinder.

Miss Marple is not afraid of dead bodies and she is not easily intimidated.  her methods of crime solving are based on the belief that "human nature is much the same everywhere."  When reading  books with Miss Marple in them  I always think of Ecclesiastes 1:9  "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again: there is nothing new under the sun."

She has many "comforting and innocent past times - knitting, gardening, bird watching and of course watching people.  Miss Marple is so normal that murderers never fear her - until it's too late and she's figured them out.

It is said that Christie based her female sleuth in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on certain friends of her grandmother and her grandmother.  Christie once said of her grandmother "[she] expected the worst of everyone and everything and was with most frightening accuracy, usually proved right."

Miss Marple appears in twelve books and many short stories:

• Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
• The Body in the Library (1942)
• The Moving Finger (1943)
• A Murder is Announced (1950)
• They Do It With Mirrors, or Murder With Mirrors (1952)
• A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
• 4:50 From Paddington, or What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! (1957)
• The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side, or The Mirror Crack'd (1962)
• A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
• At Bertram's Hotel (1965)
• Nemesis (1971)
• Sleeping Murder (written around 1940, published 1976)

Short Story Collections:

• The Tuesday Night Club features Miss Marple for the first time ever. Written in 1927.
• The Thirteen Problems
• Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories
• Greenshaw's Folly
• Strange Jest
• Tape- Measure Murder
• The Case of the Caretaker
• The Case of the Perfect Maid

Miss Jane Marple quotes:

     "There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands."  Rev Leonard Cleming speaking of Miss Marple. 

"It is true of course that I have lived what is called a very uneventful life, but I have had a lot of experiences in solving different little problems that have arisen."  Jane Marple

"The worst is so often true." Miss Jane Marple

"You can only really get under anybody's skin if you are married to them."  Miss Jane Marple

"I'm afraid I am not very clever myself, but living all these years in St. Mary Mead does give one an insight into human nature." Jane Marple

The ex-commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir Henry Clithering, said of Miss Marple:

"She's just the finest detective God ever made. Natural Genius."