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Tea and Scandal: The Murder at the Vicarage 2.0

1.31.2018
"I daresay everyone thinks it is somebody different. That is why it is so important to have proofs. I, for instance, am quiet convinced I know who did it. But I must admit I haven't one shadow of proof." 
Image from here
- The Murder at the Vicarage, p. 213.

The Sum of It:
The Murder at the Vicarage was Agatha's first introduction of the inquisitive, gossip-fueled, always-a-step-ahead amateur sleuth Miss Marple, and since Audrey read this one last year and raved about how fun it was, I had to make it my first re-read of 2018. 

This story is narrated by the charming if a bit grumpy Vicar of St. Mary Mead, a small and veeery quintessential British village, which seems to have approximately 15 inhabitants, though there must be more because at once point the village church is described as crowded. But such a British village, no matter how tiny, is not immune to scandal, and right off the bat there's a discrepancy with the church money, an extramarital affair with a handsome artist in the Vicar's shed, and pretty soon after that, an actual murder in the Vicar's own study! The victim, Col. Protheroe, was ill-liked nearly universally, known for bossing everyone around, shouting constantly, and harsh convictions in his courtroom. Miss Marple, for one, can think of at least 7 people would would have liked to see him dead. 

As the evidence settles, largely aided by Miss Marple and her troupe of elderly lady busybodies who spend nearly all their time documenting the intricacies of town life (when not arranging their Japanese rock gardens or hosting visiting novelist nephews), the police suffer from an abundance of confessions and conflicting evidence. The more confused everyone becomes, the more serene and unflappable Miss Marple remains, biding her time until enough of the facts line up with her initial conclusion to clear everything up for the police and the poor Vicar, who's forced to become a bit of an amateur sleuth himself!

The YOA Treatment:
One of the things we came to realize about Miss Marple stories over the course of The Year of Agatha was that her tales have a uniquely clever tone and engaging pace. Perhaps because Agatha saw a bit of herself in Miss Marple, or a bit of some favorite neighbors, there's always a bit of a twinkle in Miss Marple's eye. No matter how silly or fanciful others think she is, she's actually two steps ahead of them at every turn, but never crows about it. She just bides her time, deducing all the way, until her conclusions are undeniable. Often, people in her circle start out the book annoyed by her nosiness and pronouncements about human nature, but she always wins them over by the end. Her spunk and quiet confidence are refreshing and charming, and The Murder at the Vicarage is a classic example. 

Miss Marple stories are also often quite funny, and The Murder at the Vicarage certainly fits that bill. Between the fussy Vicar, his flighty and mischievous young wife, their foolish and outspoken nephew Dennis, and their wholly incompetent maid, Mary, that one household alone had me chuckling out loud as I read. Miss Marple, gifted in the art of light irony spoken with a twinkle in her eye, is also awfully funny, especially as she interacts with her vainglorious author nephew Raymond or pompous policemen.  Agatha also injects her own sense of humor in the narration, such as this little poke at modern literature, given as a description of Raymond: 

"I cannot say that I have at any time a great admiration for Mr. Raymond West. He is, I know, supposed to be a brilliant novelist, and has made quite a name as a poet. His poems have no capital letters in them, which is, I believe, the essence of modernity. His books are about unpleasant people leading lives of surpassing dullness." 

The Murder at the Vicarage is the perfect introduction to Miss Marple, and to Agatha on the light side, and was also a perfect way to start of my year of reviewing some of Audrey's favorites from The Year of Agatha! 

- E. 

Returning to the Scene of the Crime!: The Body in the Library 2.0

1.21.2018
(image from here)
"A knock came at the door. Automatically from the depths of her dreams Mrs. Bantry said: 'Come in.' ...Out of the dim green light Mary's voice came - breathless, hysterical: 'Oh, ma'am, oh, ma'am, there's a body in the library.'"
-The Body in the Library, p. 2

The Sum of It:
Much of the delight of The Body in the Library comes from its inclusion of two of my favorite Christie characters, Dolly Bantry and Miss Jane Marple. While we've met Dolly Bantry before (most notably as a mystery/riddle dinner party participant in perhaps the only Christie short story collection I actually enjoyed, The Thirteen Problems), in The Body in the Library, Dolly is at the same time a bit of a victim, suspect, and crime solver. 

While enjoying a dream-filled sleep, Dolly Bantry is dramatically awaken by her maid with the info that there is a BODY IN THE LIBRARY. Like, literally. Initial investigation by Dolly and husband, Arthur, finds that there is indeed the body of a young woman in their library, but the Bantrys have no idea who she could be. After bringing in the police, the library body is identified as Ruby Keene, a young woman who worked at a nearby-ish hotel. It appears young Ruby had endeared herself to a rich hotel resident (gosh, I love these books with the people who are like "oh yeah I just live at this fancy hotel!" Like for real, no sarcasm, it sounds so fun!) named Conway Jefferson, who had just decided to leave Ruby a bunch of money in his will instead of his own family (*MOTIVE ALERT*)! 

Although Mr. Jefferson turns out to be a pal of the Bantrys, it's still very unclear why Ruby's body should have turned up in their library. When suspicion of the Bantrys's involvement continues to pervade St. Mary Mead, Dolly brings in her old pal, Miss Jane Marple, to help with the investigation!

The YOA Treatment:
The Body in the Library has always been one of my favorite Christie stories, and so it was one of the first picks for my list of books to read for THIS year of Agatha! I love the meta-ness Agatha brings to this particular novel. She references her self-awareness in her forward where she talks about having stored up ideas about how to pull of the cliche storyline of a body in a library. She even has a character talking about HERSELF as a mystery author at one point. The overall effect is a bit whimsical for the first half as the police and Dolly Bantry and Miss Marple traipse around the village and the Majestic hotel, sussing out alibis riddled with letter writing and bridge playing and tennis partners and whatnot. However, in true Agatha fashion, she pulls out a twist and a half at the end, bringing back clues from early on that you had completely discounted, and ending somberly with a reminder that murder is always tinged with evil.

I left The Body in the Library with a solid opening to our third (!) Year of Agatha, and heartily recommend it for anyone looking to soak in a classic Christie whodunnit in 2018.

Cheers!
-A.
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The Many Years of Agatha #2018

1.16.2018
(William Andrew Loomis, Woman in Yellow Shirt Reading, from this charming blog called Reading & Art.)

Hello friends,

We are so excited for a new year and all the new ideas bubbling around in our little heads for Agatha and books and you guys and here we are to finally share them!

First, regarding Agatha: 
We, like you, are clearly having trouble quitting dear Agatha even though we've spent so much time with her already. This year we've decided to do a couple things, and the first is to take an opportunity to recommend to each other some favorites that we each read on our own the first time around, swap books, and chat about those favorites from the other mindtwin's perspective. Emily hates that she missed reading The Murder at the Vicarage and The Moving Finger, and Audrey is tickled to pick up The Man in the Brown Suit and 4:50 from Paddington. You'll find the schedule of the books we'll be revisiting each month where you always do on the blog, and you'll also be seeing evidence of the reading on our social media accounts per usual. We hope those of you who are newer to Agatha's work will drop in and join us when we're working on one you're eager to read, and share your thoughts with us here or on social media! And of course, because we truly love them and can't stop staring at them, we will also continue sharing our favorite vintage copies on Instagram and Facebook.

Second, regarding other authors:
We, like you, really like books and have enormous to-be-read stacks that seem to grow almost on their own! We know it can be a bit jarring for an account you come to for one thing (Agatha Christie, for example) to flip the script periodically and try to move in different directions, so we've decided to add a second venture to the Mindtwins Media Empire (to quote Jon Lovett #FriendsofthePod, we're working on becoming media moguls), which we've decided to call #drumrollplease... The Book & Cover

The Book & Cover will be a second blog and set of social media accounts where we will each review and recommend books by current authors and share more gorgeous cover art along the way (because we are obsessed)! Each of us will be reading, reviewing, and recommending a book each month, either a new release or a book newly released in paperback (listen, we're all on a bit of a book budget and sometimes we just gotta wait for that PB!). You know us; We're not here to be snobby about what's cool to read, to pretend we know more than professional authors about how a good book is composed, or to ruin your experience of reading a book with silly spoilers. We get asked all the time what we're reading now, and what we can recommend folks pick up when they're in their local book shops, so we're excited to share that type of info with our pals here, on #bookstagram, and elsewhere, about new books we're truly pumped about, and to hear your #thoughtzandfeelingz about them as well.

IN CONCLUSION, IN WITH THE SAME, IN WITH THE NEW, we like to say, and we'll be here doing more of what we love for as long as you'll have us (and books). What a world we're living in right now, and what an opportunity our writer friends offer us to imagine new things, visualize magical places, feel a different person's feelings, and escape our everyday. To quote one of us from Twitter in response to a favorite author's (#CharlesFinch) lament about whether it's right to create art right now, we say that without our writers and artists, everything stops. We stop, in our exploring, and considering of perspectives and moving forward day after day. What our author friends do is vital, and we're here to shout it. As Emily Mandel wrote in Station Eleven, "survival is insufficient!" So we're here to celebrate writers, old and new, on as many platforms as we need to, and we hope you'll keep joining us and adding your voices to the revelry.

Cheers, loves, we are ever,

-E. & A.