Sir Henry is upset that the menfolk are telling all the stories at the group’s get-togethers, so Miss Marple herself has to step up with a mystery that took place at a Hydro. “Do you mean a seaplane?” one of the guests asks, “with wide eyes.” No, not a seaplane. A Hydro is apparently what Brits at the time called a spa, the kind of place where they might take a water cure. Or something like that.
In any event, I didn’t like the mystery here at all. It was ridiculous (or “incredible,” as Dr. Lloyd puts it), involving the usual complicated staging that it’s impossible to credit for a minute. The only interesting element was the way Miss Marple misleads her audience in her telling of the story, leading them to expect one thing, then seeming to deny it, and finally showing that she was actually right in her suspicions all along. It only took her a while to prove it.
A Christmas tragedy? Maybe not. Maybe the victim was lucky. “Perhaps it was better for her to die while life was still happy than it would have been for her to live on, unhappy and disillusioned, in a world that would have seemed suddenly horrible.” Sheesh. I mean, you could probably say that about anybody’s life, at least at some point, but you shouldn’t. It actually reminded me of the end of the novel The Moving Finger, where such sentiments are meant (I’m sure) as a joke. But Miss Marple is no sentimentalist. The killer here ends up being hanged “And a good job to. . . I’ve no patience with modern humanitarian scruples about capital punishment.” Just because they call these cozies doesn’t mean they’re soft-hearted. Order must be maintained.
Alex Good 
‘Order must be maintained.’
Who sponsors the AI who writes this? Such authoritarian sentiments. Just because your church coffee morning group made you bin your VHS of Liquid Sky before the good bits. Think you need a stay in a hydro to recharge.
LikeLike
I am the AI. You can call me Al. Miss Marple endorses authoritarian sentiments because she doesn’t want anything nasty happening in St. Mary Mead. Are there any hydros in Scotland? Is there any hydro?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, Crieff, Seamill, hydros a gogo up here.
LikeLike
We’d have a lot less murders if we still had the death penalty. Just saying…
LikeLiked by 1 person
You see, you and Miss M would get along famously.
LikeLiked by 2 people
We would, publicly.
We’d be carrying on a secret death feud though…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wouldn’t get too cocky. The old bird knows her poisons.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh, not cocky at all. You don’t get to be as old as her, with her attitude, by being a pushover.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mrs. Pollifax wipes the floor with Miss Marple. Just sayin’….
LikeLiked by 1 person
But can she knit? Miss M can knit just about anything. Sweaters. Mittens. Toques.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Mrs.Pollifax is a Brown Belt in Karate, and grows prize-winning geraniums! Knitting, pfft!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m giving away my age by immediately thinking that knitting is more useful than either of the accomplishments you mention. Even for solving crimes.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I just karate chopped you. You are now dead. How’s that knitting going now?
😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Obviously you didn’t know you can knit a karate-proof vest out of steel wool. So I’m still knitting . . . your funeral shroud. Because that’s all you need now with two super-bulky 12.75 mm needles piercing into your brain.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Now you are just making stuff up! I swear, you are as bad as Eddie sometimes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ahem
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gesundheit!
LikeLike
However, it does explain why my nails are so clean now…
LikeLiked by 1 person
You can think that, I can’t agree though. I’d have to write a whole dissertation on this subject to say why, but I have to go in the shower now so that’s that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I guess you’re excused. But Booky gets no excuse for not knitting us all Christmas keepsakes.
LikeLiked by 1 person