Marple: Twelve New Stories

Marple: Twelve New Stories is a collection of twelve short stories starring Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple, written by twelve present-day female crime writers. Many achieve Christie's style for these stories, and those by Elly Griffiths and Leigh Bardugo are especially good.

In this collection, Miss Marple solves another Murder At The Vicarage, goes shopping in Manhattan, almost regrets being the guest of an acquaintance, solves a murder where no one dies, is set up as a murderer's alibi, and catches a pearl thief.

She also learns to waltz, practices tai chi, teams up with a sleuth from London's Caribbean community, vacations in Italy, takes a ship to Hong Kong, talks someone out of a killing, solves a murder at a remove, takes a trip to the seaside, and ends up being an accessory after the fact.

Cases include too many confessors for the murder of a pig herder, an under-gardener is wrongly accused, an old coffin is opened, a steward impersonated, a murderer committing unwitting suicide, a missing son, missing jewels and a drowned botanist.

Murder methods or weapons include knives, a frayed electrical cable, poison mushrooms, a gun, an arrow, drugs, poisonous bark, leaves and fruit, Chinese herbal medicines, poisoned pills, soil in a cut, poisoned whiskey, and a brass kettle. These are very readable little doses of Miss Marple that Agatha Christie herself might have written. Recommended.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins UK.