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    The Body in the Library: A Miss Marple Mystery
    The Body in the Library: A Miss Marple Mystery
    The Body in the Library: A Miss Marple Mystery
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Body in the Library: A Miss Marple Mystery

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Stephanie Cole

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The iconic Miss Marple must investigate the case of a girl found dead in Agatha Christie’s classic mystery, The Body in the Library.

    It’s seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing an evening dress and heavy makeup, which is now smeared across her cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry?

    The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple into their home to investigate. Amid rumors of scandal, she baits a clever trap to catch a ruthless killer.


    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062232281
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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    Reviews for The Body in the Library

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    • 2/5
      The Body in the Library: Marple, Christie

      &#9733 &#9733

      Ok; another slur against Italians..... makes me wonder if her books sold well in Italy!

      Let's see Mrs. & Colonel Bantry are woken up by a hysterical maid... something about there being "A Body in the Library".... When Dolly Bantry goes down to the library to check on the hysterics, yes indeed there is the body of a strangled young woman in a white spangled evening dress in the library.....

      Miss Marple,a close friend of Mrs. Bantry, is called in immediately to nose around (investigate)......

      They find out from the police that the body seems to be that of Ruby Keene, a dancer at the local hotel; and the soon to be adopted ward of Mr. Conway Jefferson, and invalid whose family perished in an accident, and who is being taken care of by his son-in-law & daughter-in-law.

      Not much afterwards a Girl Guide come up missing and it seems as if it her her that is found in the charred remains of a local's car.

      Almost 1/2 way through Miss Marple announces to Dolly Bantry that she knows who did it..... But she isn't going to tell, as there are other loose ends to tie up & need for proof positive.

      I found this to be a rather benign story with flat characters, none of whom I cared about...... This could have been so much more appealing & interesting, but it seems as if Christie was writing just to be writing.
    • 5/5
      That's an engaging reading. A mystery full of surprises and hard to solve. One must love Miss Marple, her cleverness and capacity to stick to details. The story flows naturally, always claiming the reader's attention. Like it a lot!
    • 3/5
      Not one of Christie's best, I think, essentially because the conclusion is extremely convoluted, the characters aren't developed enough for us to care much about any of them and Miss Marple barely makes an appearance. It was a pleasant read, but no more than that.
    • 4/5
      Miss Marple novel with, yes, a body in the library. The library in question belongs to an old friend of Miss Marple, but the dead blonde doesn't. Unfortunately for Colonel Bantry, it's far too delicious a piece of tittle-tattle for the villagers to believe that the Colonel has never seen the girl before, and Mrs Bantry is well aware that her husband will be broken by the gossip if the real murderer isn't found, even if the police believe him to be innocent. So her immediate reaction is to call in her friend Miss Marple for help.The victim is soon identified, along with several people who might have had a motive to kill her. But those with strong motives have strong alibis, and those with weak alibis have weak motives. Adding to the confusion is the second murder of a young girl. Miss Marple has good reason to find the solution, both to clear the names of the innocent -- and to prevent a third murder.AS usual with Christie, many of the characters are cardboard, but very skillfully painted cardboard, with real motivations and consistent characterisations. One of the final elements really does seem to come out of nowhere, but the groundwork for it has been carefully laid. This is a beautifully constructed mystery, with all the clues you need, mixed in with a whole shoal of convincing red herrings.The strength of Christie's books is always her dissection of human behaviour, but here she's particularly good at showing the dark side of the interest in gossip that Miss Marple uses to bring justice for the dead.A week or so after reading the book, I listened to the abridged audiobook from Macmillan Digital Audio, read by Ian Masters. It's a good abridgement on 3 CDs which manages to retain the necessary plot elements without signalling them too broadly, and Masters does a good job of reading the text. In particular, he manages to read the dialogue for the female characters without the over-exaggerated high pitch used by male actors on a few of the audiobooks I've listened to recently.
    • 5/5
      When the body of an unknown young blonde woman is found in the library of Gossington Hall both Colonel and Mrs. Bantry are completely baffled about how she came to be there. While the police do their investiagtions, Mrs. Bantry solicits the help of Miss Marple to determine just who did commit the murder. The case will bring them to a seaside resort and to the old friend of the Bantrys, Mr. Jefferson, whose complicated relationships may just be at the heart of the matter.Agatha Christie always hits the spot for me and this one was no exception. Miss Marple's detecting skills are top notch as ever, the mystery is well crafted, and I'm always a sucker for any book that involves a library of any kind. I appreciated that this book used the limited omniscient viewpoint which allowed for the plot to follow multiple characters at once and, of course, leave Miss Marple's conclusions hidden from the reader until the very end. Again, I always enjoy the humour Christie uses in her novels. I particularly got great glee from one of the characters, an afficionado of detective novels, mentioning he had autographs from several mystery writers including Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie. An excellent Marple mystery and just great fun all around.
    • 4/5
      This is only the second Christie novel I've read, but I'm definitely hooked. The mystery was enjoyable, with a colorful cast of characters. The body of a young platinum-dyed blonde is found in the library and the Lady of the house calls in Miss Marple to help solve the crime. Though Miss Marple appears cliche in a post Murder She Wrote world, Marple came first! This was a very quick read.
    • 4/5
      Once again, Miss Marple is back on the case in this the second novel of the Miss Marple series. This time she is called by her friend Dolly Bantry, who lives in Gossington Hall, because Dolly's maid woke her up in the morning screaming that there was a body in the library. It turns out to be the body of a young girl, dressed in evening finery, and a quick search of missing persons turns up the name of Ruby Keene, who fits the description of the dead girl. Ruby was a dancer at a local resort, and had recently caught the eye of one Jeffrey Conway, an elderly man confined to a wheelchair, who wanted to "adopt" Ruby. But there were several people who didn't want to see that happen, and getting rid of Ruby seemed a good idea at the time. But wait! Just when you think you've got it, Dame Agatha throws you a curveball and you have to go back to square one in your thinking! I tell you, she is a master at her game.Recommended; if you like British mysteries or the English-village cozy type novel, you'll very much enjoy this one.
    • 4/5
      Colonel Bantry wakes one morning to find the dead body of young girl completely unbeknownst to him. His wife sees this tragedy not as that but as an opportunity to watch a real-life mystery unfold from a front-row seat. Mrs. Bantry consequently calls on her friend, Miss Marple, to use her amateur sleuthing skills to crack the case.This is the second Miss Marple book I picked up, and it was interesting to see the changes from the first book in the series. There is now an omniscient third-person narrator and, while I had some quibbles with the vicar narrating first-person in The Murder at the Vicarage, I did find that I missed some of his insights, especially about the characterizations of the people in the village. However, the narration in The Body in the Library allows the reader to get more information from a variety of sources, including the police force and another private detective hired for the case. The second significant change is that Miss Marple is a bigger character in this book. She is immediately recognized for her ability to solve complex cases and is thus given entry to crime scenes and provided information by the police and the other private detective on the case. The mystery itself is similar to the first one in the series, in that it is sufficiently complex while also basically simple. I didn't guess who the culprit was at all but once revealed, it all made perfect sense.The various side characters once again made the book. While I didn't necessarily like them per se, they are varied and interesting. Christie has a knack for writing mostly believable characters who display an array of emotions, motives, etc. There is quite a bit of classism in this book, although I'm never quite sure if that is merely a reflection of certain characters' opinions or if it is also a bit of Christie's own thoughts on the matter. All in all though, I enjoyed this book as a light, quick, and entertaining read. I've put further Miss Marple books on hold for the moment while I catch up on other reading, but I will probably revisit this series again in the near future. For the audiophile, the narrator of this book (Stephanie Cole) was good, but not necessarily great.
    • 5/5
      The Body in the Library is a Miss Marple Mystery. I am not sure why I am getting reviews for a Sleeping Murder. I adore the Body in the Library and Stephanie Cole is wonderful as narrator. Well worth a listen.
    • 4/5
      This one was billed as a Miss Marple mystery, but she's only there for the last few chapters and we don't really get to see her detective powers until the final chapter. I felt slightly cheated by this because, while the POV character was great, it wasn't the book that I wanted when I sat down with it. I'm sure that if you're not specifically looking for a Marple book then this is a fun, satisfying mystery. I didn't guess who did it (I was way off base) and the brother and sister team at the heart of the book were fun to spend time with. Not one of Christie's strongest, but still a good read.
    • 5/5
      Excellent, such a twist! I completely enthralled by the plot!
    • 3/5
      Not really a Miss Marple mystery. Marple doesn't appear until about 80% of the way through and then as a cameo role. She then appears at the end to wrap everything up. It was like she was added as an afterthought so it could be a "Miss Marple Mystery." Really, Christie could have inserted any of her sleuths and it wouldn't have made much difference.
    • 4/5
      Jerry and Joanna Burton have moved into a nice little home in Lymstock. The idea is for Jerry to fully recover from injuries sustained from a plane crash. However, quite village life is not all it is cracked up to be. Especially since many of the residents the Burton's included have been getting nasty gossip letters. Who could be sending them and Why? Leave it to an old friend of the Vicars wife..Miss Marple to solve it! She is invited to stay with the Vicar and his wife and is asked to look into it. She not only is able to determine the culprit, but is also able to aide in finding out why one of the residents killed themselves.
    • 4/5
      Poison pen letters devastate idyllic Lymstock, but they’re only the beginning…

      "The Moving Finger" has some issues - Maurice Disher’s contemporary Times review points out some flaws with the narrator’s voice – but it’s perhaps Christie’s best examination of the sinister undercurrent in these tiny hamlets. The brutal poison pen letters with their filthy insinuations, the blackmail and murder, are at their peak here, with the duality perfectly conveyed through the arrival of our narrator and his sister – a London society couple – who struggle to interpret the difference between the sincere and malicious actions of their new neighbours, in a world with different social mores, hiding all sorts of dirty deeds.

      There’s a case to be made for Jane Marple as a fascinating detective – where her observational skills and taste for gossip can one-up the local constabulary – but much of the time she is a secondary figure in her own novels. The general technique of solving a Marple mystery – noticing the background inconsistencies in seemingly implacable facades of village elders – often means the mystery consists of a close reading of some blathering elderly folk. When it works, it works, but too often the Marple books come across as glacially paced. "The Moving Finger", though, is an example of all these elements working, and how.

      Later in life, Agatha Christie came to feel very comfortable with Miss Jane Marple (that’s the other factor in the relative decline of quality: Marple books were primarily written after WWII, and thus in Christie’s more patchy era). The best Marple books are those in which – shock horror! – Marple herself does some investigating, and the clues prepared for us are logical… if only we could read them. What makes Poirot stand out as a detective in crime fiction is that – in retrospect – we kick ourselves for not having been able to see what should have been blindingly obvious. Marple is in fine form here: her status as a hawk-eyed gossip makes her a wonderful amateur detective when used well, and this time the clues and facts – gathered by the narrator, the police and our spinster – all make sense. With a comparatively strong narrator, and a nice array of characters, the novel focuses on all the potential suspects while also maintaining atmosphere. Unlike "The Hollow", Marple’s late entry doesn’t damage things: if anything, it allows us to gather clues and then watch Marple figure things out in a far more breezy fashion than usual.

      "The Moving Finger" is a clear classic. There are only two flaws: the “ugly duckling” sequence is an unnecessary strain of melodrama (which also led to an embarrassing low point in the Joan Hickson adaptation ), and there is a curiously maligned gay dude. (Christie wrote a few touching lesbians in her time, but gay men seem to have failed her litmus test.) However, these are minor issues for a novel written when my grandparents were children. Great stuff.

      Marple ranking: 2nd out of 14
    • 5/5
      Jerry Burton soll auf ärztliche Anordnung „dem Stumpfsinn fröhnen“. Er zieht vorübergehend mit seiner Schwester Joanna in die ländliche Stadt Lymstock. Doch es bleibt nicht lange ruhig. Anonyme Briefe werden verschickt, die gespickt mit Obszönitäten und Unwahrheiten auch Jerry nicht verschonen. Niemand nimmt die Briefe wirklich ernst, bis eines Tages durch solche ein Brief getrieben, ein Selbstmord geschieht. Lymstock ist entsetzt. Wie gut, dass die Pfarrersfrau Miss Marple zu Rate zieht.Auch wenn das Buch in die Reihe der Miss Marple Geschichten eingegliedert ist, so ist doch hier Jerry der eigentliche Protagonist. Unterstrichen wird dies durch die Ich-Perspektive der Erzählung. Er schildert den Fall aus seiner Sicht und kommt der Lösung gefährlich nahe, doch fehlt ihm das Selbstvertrauen, die richtigen Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen.Dass er in diese Stadt zieht, sieht er zunächst als eine gute Möglichkeit, Klatsch und Tratsch zu erfahren, um so seine Rückenheilung voranschreiten zulassen. Durch seine sympathische Art wird er schnell in die Gemeinde integriert. Besonders die kleine Megan hat es ihm angetan. Megan lebt mit ihrer Mutter, ihrem Stiefvater und ihren Halbbrüdern zusammen und ist eigentlich alt genug, um auf eigenen Beinen zu stehen. Doch die Ignoranz ihrer Familie ihr und ihren Bedürfnissen gegenüber, macht sie zu einem melancholischen Mädchen, das lieber noch einmal klein sein möchte. Erst die Zuneigung Jerrys lockt das doch eigentlich intelligente Mädchen aus der Reserve.Mysteriöse Briefe und die Beziehung zwischen Megan und Jerry bilden die Fixpunkte dieser Geschichte. Christie zeichnet die Hauptpersonen hier besonders persönlich und sympathisch. Man wird regelrecht in diese Erzählung hineingezogen, es bilden sich stille Hoffnungen und nicht umsonst bezeichnet die Autorin diesen Roman als einen ihrer stärksten. Und damit hat sie meiner Ansicht nach recht. Das Buch steckt voller vordergründiger und unterschwelliger Gefühle. Und dabei kommt die eigentliche Kriminalgeschichte nicht zu kurz. Doch Christie schweift hier auch einmal ab, geht neue Wege in der Charakterzeichnung und das macht diesen Roman so faszinierend.Eine sehr emotionale Kriminalgeschichte.
    • 3/5
      Not her best.
    • 3/5
      A rather enjoyable mystery book. Christie keeps you guessing exactly what is going on in it, but when you come to the end of the book you come to the realization that it all falls into place rather nicely and if you had just looked at things from a slightly different angle you would have gotten there yourself. I rather found it pleasing to read and glad I finished it. I would recommend it to those that want to be able to dissect a mystery novel as this one seems rather ease for that purpose.
    • 5/5
      Keep in mind that Miss Marple only appears at the very end of this book--and solves the mystery. Yet, this is an excellent story, and I love the characters. Another big hit from the Queen of Mystery!
    • 3/5
      2.5** The fourth installment in the Miss Marple series has the reader visiting the small village of Lymstock. Jerry Burton has come to the quiet town along with his sister, to recuperate from a bad accident. But they are greeted with a vitriolic anonymous letter, and soon discover that someone has been sending such poison pen missives to most of the women in town. The local solicitor’s wife commits suicide after one such note … or does she?This is an intricately plotted mystery, but Miss Marple doesn’t appear until page 153 (out of 216 total pages). Most of the detective work is done by Jerry Burton and the local investigator, Superintendent Nash. They don’t lack for suspects; it seems that almost everyone in town is a potential culprit, including the vicar’s wife! But of course, after hearing a few casual remarks Miss Marple solves the entire case. There are a couple of romantic subplots which are really ridiculous and do nothing to further the mystery. I recognize that Christie frequently included such elements in her earlier works, but it just irritates me.
    • 3/5
      This one was fun, although I was rather confused at it being a Miss Marple book, since there was no sign of her until more than halfway through. She did arrive, though, a Marple ex machina, solving it all. I could say I found this one easy to figure out, but someone told me how it ended before I got there, so that's cheating.

      The thing I liked most about this, I think, was the narrator, and his relationship with Megan. It just made me laugh -- him calling her catfish, and insulting her, and not knowing how fond of her he was becoming. So I smiled at the happy ending. I wouldn't mind seeing them again, in some later Miss Marple book...

      Again, a fun snack between meals. A palate-cleanser between doses of Chandler, perhaps.
    • 3/5
      Miss Marple doesn't come in until the last third of the book, and even at that point, she's still a secondary character.

      The foreshadowing was interesting (but didn't help me "solve" the mystery)

      I had to skip to the back and see "whodunnit" before I could finish reading.
    • 4/5
      Pointing FingersAgatha Christie's swift, slim 1942 novel The Moving Finger is a Miss Marple mystery which very nearly does not have Miss Marple.In my version (the spiffy new Black Dog & Leventhal edition), the grandmotherly detective makes her first appearance on page 144 of the book's 201 pages. That's like Bruce Willis making his first appearance in a Bruce Willis movie twenty minutes before the end credits roll. Fifty-seven pages do not allow very much time for a detective to solve a case.However, even though she has what can best be described as an extended cameo role in The Moving Finger, Miss Jane Marple pulls it off in grand fashion, as always.The story is told through the eyes of Jerry Burton who has come to the little village of Lymstock with his younger sister Joanna after he's been injured in a wartime plane crash. His doctor has advised him to "lead the life of a vegetable" in a place where he can find peace and quiet.At first, Lymstock seems like the perfect haven. Sure, the residents are a little eccentric-&#151but who isn't when they live in Agatha Christie Land, right? From the first page of the novel, we're told that something is amiss and it centers around a series of anonymous letters which have been sent to several people living in the village.As Jerry tells us after he receives the first crude message, It seems odd, now, to remember that Joanna and I were more amused by the letter than anything else. We hadn't, then, the faintest inkling of what was to come&#151-the trail of blood and violence and suspicion and fear.That first letter accuses Jerry and Joanna of engaging in sexual activity most unbecoming of a brother and sister. Agatha never discloses the contents of the letters, but lets our imagination dance around the possibilities of what it says. I have a feeling that what we imagine is much more graphic than how readers in 1942 would have filled in the blanks. Whatever we guess the letters to say, the language would not have been suitable for World War Two era readers.During a visit to the local doctor, Jerry happens to mention the letter (which he impetuously burned in the fireplace). Dr. Griffith drops his bag and exclaims, "Do you mean to say that you've had one of them?"The epidemic of anonymous poison letters has been spreading around Lymstock for some time, Griffith tells Jerry, all of them "harping on the sex theme." The local solicitor Symmington was accused of illicit relations with his secretary ("Miss Ginch, who's forty at least, with pince-nez and teeth like a rabbit"), and even the doctor himself has received a letter which claims to have knowledge of him sleeping with some of his lady patients."What is this place?" Joanna wonders. "It looks the most innocent, sleepy harmless little bit of England you can imagine."That is Agatha's forte, of course-&#151ripping away the thin skin of gentility and good manners to reveal the gory, pestilential truth beneath. What reader hasn't known a two-faced, scheming liar who gets his or her jollies out of seeing innocent people suffer? Agatha knew how to craft a clever, often outlandish plot around an ordinary truth.Eventually, the venomous accusations become too much to bear and one character commits suicide-&#151ah, but was it really suicide? Perhaps there's something deeper, darker at work in Lymstock than just flooding the mail with wicked letters. Maybe there's more to it than just "sex and spite." Soon, paranoia is gripping the town: There was a half-scared, half-avid gleam in almost everybody's eye. Neighbor looked at neighbor.The police are called in as more bodies begin to pile up and while the investigators do their best to sort through the psychological patterns they find in the letters, it isn't until Miss Marple makes her late entrance in the novel that we know the village residents can breathe a sigh of relief. It won't be long before this "tame elderly maiden lady" will unmask the letter writer.Sandwiched chronologically between The Body in the Library and Murder in Retrospect, The Moving Finger is a fine addition to the Christie library. Agatha herself was partial to it, as she wrote in her Autobiography, "I find that another one I am really pleased with is The Moving Finger. It is a great test to reread what one has written some seventeen or eighteen years before. One's view changes. Some do not stand the test of time, others do."With its keen psychological probing of rumor and paranoia, this Christie mystery certainly stands the test of time.
    • 4/5
      I am slowly rereading the Miss Marple books this year. This 3rd one barely qualifies as a Miss Marple as she doesn't make an appearance until about 80% of the way through. Of course, she quickly solves the case once she appears on the scene! It is almost as if Christie's publisher talked her into adding in a familiar sleuth rather than making it one of her stand-alone mysteries...Richard E. Grant is marvelous in his narration of the audiobook. I really appreciated all the different voices he did for the different characters!
    • 3/5
      with all the adaptations going around, it's sometimes hard to remember if you've actually read the book or not

      This is a Miss Marple story, though she does turn up late and is hardly in the story at all.

      This is a story of Burton (and his sister) taking a house in the coutry after his flying accident. Soon they have received a poison pen letter accusing them of not being brother and sister, and not long after this people start dying. Burton has most of it worked out, even if he doesnt realise it, before Miss Marple arrives and ties everything up into a neat bow.

      Once again, a short neat little story and a quick read to while away an afternoon or two
    • 5/5
      “Such a peaceful smiling happy countryside – and down underneath, something evil…”-- The Moving Finger, p. 28After a wartime plane crash, Jerry Burton’s doctor advises him to find a nice, quiet country village and “live the life of a vegetable” to speed along the recuperation process. Jerry and his sister Joanna settle in Lymstock, an idyllic country town that is three miles from a main road. It is a place where, as an astonished Joanna observes, “People really call – with cards!” Jerry’s peaceful, vegetative life in Lymstock is, however, soon shattered. A few days after their arrival, Jerry receives a malicious anonymous letter. The letter alleges that the Burtons are not brother and sister, but an unmarried couple living in sin. Jerry and Joanna are initially quite amused by the novelty of receiving such a letter, but they soon view the letter as a sign of something much more sinister.All of Lymstock, it seems, has been receiving these letters. When a woman apparently commits suicide after receiving a letter, the search for the writer intensifies. After another character is murdered, presumably by the anonymous writer, a palpable fear settles over the community. Neighbor suspects neighbor and the whole of Lymstock wonders who amongst them could be capable of such despicable acts.The indomitable Miss Marple makes her first appearance in the last quarter of the novel. For a less skillful writer than Dame Christie, the lack of the primary character could have made this story very tedious for the reader, but Christie’s characters are so well-drawn and compelling that the reader does not notice the loss. The primary sleuthing has been done by Jerry and a few of the other residents of Lymstock, but only Miss Marple is able to connect the myriad of clues and bring the killer to justice.The Moving Finger was originally published in the United States in 1942. For a novel that is over sixty years old, it has aged incredibly well. Agatha Christie’s extraordinary understanding of human nature gives her characters and her stories a timeless quality. One of my favorite Christie novels, The Moving Finger is a compelling read that will keep you guessing until the end.
    • 3/5
      Poison pen letters spread throughout an English village, upsetting recipients, and leading to a suicide. The village is full of quirky characters, any one of whom might be responsible for the anonymous missives. Ultimately the mystery will be solved by one of the villagers' acquaintances, none other than Miss Jane Marple. This was my first Miss Marple mystery, and I was surprised at how small a presence Miss Marple actually was in the story. She didn't appear until more than halfway through the book, and then remained in the background, sort of like the furniture. Yes, she does ultimately solve the mystery, but she's hardly a character of much consequence. It appears that The Moving Finger is one of the earlier Miss Marple mysteries, and perhaps the character was not yet well-developed. As this was my first Miss Marple I don't really have another novel for comparison. The story is told by an injured pilot, who has moved to the countryside to recover. As he meets the various villagers, especially the women, there's an added element of romance, but as with all of Christie's work, the mystery remains the heart of the book. This is not one of Christie's more remarkable works, but it is certainly solid, and kept me riveted to the end.
    • 3/5
      A very clever, simple solution that makes you look back on everything that's gone before and see it in a different light. Miss Marple's hardly in it, so it doesn't really feel like a Miss Marple book, but there's so much good stuff in it, you don't really mind. Mrs Dane Calthrop, the vicar's wife, is a wonderful character.
    • 3/5
      I can't for the life of me figure out how this title goes with the story, but the story was a pleasant read.
    • 4/5
      Classic Ms. Marple -- what's not to love?
    • 4/5
      One of the cosier Christies --some are pretty grim but this is mild. A recuperating wounded airman and his sister come to a small village which is afflicted with a spate of nasty anonymous letters. The police believe they are written by a repressed respectable lady, but this turns out not to be the case. Miss Marple appears only briefly at the end to solve the case. One of the nicer features us a budding romance between te POV character (the wounded man) ad a troubled young woman.