The year is 1957, though it’s never mentioned and I’m only saying that because of the publication date. What does this mean? Well, when the conversation turns to “foreigners” one can no longer safely assume that the French are meant, because “nowadays we have so many nationalities over here, Italians, Germans, Austrians, all the Scandinavian countries –.” Meanwhile, family members aren’t sent off to India because “that is all done with now.”

As for England’s green and pleasant land, even in St. Mary Mead there’s a nearby airfield so that the jets flying over break the panes in Miss Marple’s greenhouse. And, drafty and cold, a confessed “anachronism,” Rutherford Hall is now caught in a web of railway lines. None of the Crackenthorpe heirs has any attention of living there. They just want to sell it to developers, for whom it will be worth a fortune.

But at least the kids are alright. They’re reading something called “space fiction.” Because who knows? Someday manned space flight might be a thing.

I thought this was a really enjoyable book, but not a great mystery. You can tell why it was the first Miss Marple story to be adapted into a movie, as Murder She Said (1961) starring Margaret Rutherford. There’s a Hitchcockian hook at the beginning and then a manor house mystery that plays at times like a bedroom farce as all the Crackenthorpe men get handsy with Lucy Eyelesbarrow. Including Old Man Crackenthorpe himself, who has one foot in the grave!

And who could blame them? Good help is so hard to find, especially in 1957, and Lucy is a certified keeper. She not only cooks all her meals from scratch, she even peels the mushrooms. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that, but I guess it’s a sign of class. Or was.

But as much fun as it all is, it’s not, as I’ve said, a good mystery. As critic Robert Barnard put it, “Miss Marple apparently solves the crime by divine guidance, for there is very little in the way of clues or logical deduction.” Things are wrapped up quickly, through a ludicrous stratagem, and the great detective’s explanation left me as baffled as Barnard was as to how she managed to identify the killer. This isn’t playing fair with the reader, and I expected more from Dame Agatha.

I can’t leave off without mentioning another of Christie’s old-fashioned Britishisms. It comes when Miss Marple is talking about finances: “Women have a lot of sense, you know, when it comes to money matters. Not high finance, of course. No woman can hope to understand that, my dear father said. But everyday LSD – that sort of thing.”

I pulled a blank on LSD. I was sure the old pussy (that’s how you referred to old ladies back in the day, to the point where Inspector Craddock doesn’t know what else to call them) didn’t mean Lysergic Acid Diethlamide. It’s 1957 remember, not the ‘60s. But what did she mean? After some Internet sleuthing I discovered it’s an abbreviation for pounds, shillings, and pence that’s derived from the Latin currency denominations librae, solidi, and denarii. I don’t know if it’s an expression much in use anymore even in England.

Marple index