Mission Marple Book Club discussion

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a first read for me -- excited!

Hurrah! I've not reread it yet but in my memory it is one of my favourite Marples, so I really hope you enjoy it :).

From Christie's Autobiography: "Of my detective books, I think the two that satisfy me best are Crooked House and Ordeal by Innocence. Rather to my surprise, on re-reading them the other day, I find that another one I am really pleased with is The Moving Finger. It is a great test to re-read what one has written seventeen or eighteen years later. One's view changes. Some do not stand the test of time, others do."

Just finished reading this and yep, it's as delightful as I remembered it. I can imagine the village and the people living in it very clearly. I liked Jerry as the narrator and I loved his sister Joanna. I enjoyed that she was a tad superficial without being a moron at the same time. I cracked up in the beginning when she thought the way to fit in in the country was to wear her "country tan" makeup.

I also did enjoy watching Jerry and Megan get together. It does include a Cinderella scene which is not one of my favourite narrative devices at all, but at least you could tell in the lead up to it that they loved being in each others' company, so while Jerry didn't quite realise he wanted to marry her until after her makeover, it wasn't like an out of the blue thing. Plus good on Megan for replying, when Jerry insisted he would make her love him, "I don't want to be made."

There were quite a few funny, enjoyable bits in this, for example Rose the cook's increasingly morbid re-tellings of Agnes' last few days - pretty much shrieking at shadows and mysteriously intimating things she knew to anyone who would listen. The murder of Agnes itself though always gives me the heebie-jeebies. That thing with the skewer is nasty. There is a creepy feeling building throughout the novel too; there really is something insidious about poison pen letters.

It's interesting to me as a side note that in those days the idea of a maid's "day" off sounds much more like a few hours in the afternoon/evening off.

I can imagine that if there is criticism of this novel it is the appearance of Miss Marple in it which doesn't happen until 75% of the book is done (I checked on GoodReads, haha), with only 39 pages to go in my copy and even then she doesn't appear much. To me honestly, this doesn't bother me too much because the story is so enjoyable. In fact, and I say this as someone who loves Miss Marple, I would've been quite OK for this to be a standalone. It feels like Miss Marple was put in at the last minute. Comparing that to Poirot though, while Christie put Poirot into novels when she didn't want to, I imagine in this case she put Miss Marple in because she was finding she really loved this character.

I think this illustrates very well why Christie believed that Miss Marple worked best in short stories.
Unlike the proactive Poirot,she's basically a sedentary character who sits and listens to people while she's knitting (or observes them out of her cottage windows).
In the novels,she tends to stay in the background until the solution is needed.
- Vicarage;Body in the Library;Finger;Murder is Announced;4:50.

^ Yes, it's interesting to me that even this book aside, the books I've been reading have a lot less Miss Marple in them than I remember. And from her perspective, The Moving Finger could be considered like a short story she would tell at those dinner parties, it's just in this case we as the reader get all the back story before she is on the scene.

This is one of, if not absolutely my all time favourite of Agatha Christie's books. I love the interplay between Jerry and his sister and the Welsh doctor and all of the little biddies in the village who like to gossip and interfere in each other's business. I agree that Miss Marple does stay mostly in the background, but in quite a few stories, Christie brings another character forwards to have more of a narrative. In this case it is Jerry. I really enjoy the story being narrated from a characters perspective as it gives you a more involved feel to the plot.

^I agree, I have been enjoying the first person narration so far, I actually miss it when it's not there. I agree with Mara that having the vicar narrate the Marple stories would've been fun too.

Just thinking over this novel and had to mention one more little thing I thought was pretty neat. I enjoyed how the reason Agnes was killed was not because she had seen something on the day of the murder as would be usual, but because she didn't see anything the day of the murder. That was a cool little trick.

Finished this one just in time. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the lack of Miss Marple in the book just because I love the character and her little observations on life.

I have to admit I felt a bit uncomfortable when people were referring to ‘black slaves’ and I was a bit unsure of the treatment of Mr Pye.

Jerry as a first person narrator was really engaging and I enjoyed the little romances. I also liked that we were seeing the maids as real people and not just door openers.

Lorraine wrote: "I have to admit I felt a bit uncomfortable when people were referring to ‘black slaves’ and I was a bit unsure of the treatment of Mr Pye."

Yeah, so was I, a bit. It felt a bit like his femininity was why he was considered so sinister which didn't translate well to these times. I guess he did have a bit of a ghoulish personality too which would maybe make someone suspicious, but as a characterisation it wasn't wholly satisfactory.

I enjoyed the book but felt that the whole attitude of the letter writing being a ‘female crime’ was something that felt dated. The characterisation of any of the women who weren’t married as potentially crazy spinsters (including Mr Pye who was described as pretty much a woman as well) didn’t really sit well with me. I would have liked Miss Marple to feature a little more but I liked the resolution and I did enjoy the romance element.