Tag Archives: Miss Marple

The Affair Next Door by Anna Katharine Green

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This book was first published in 1897 so it’s an early detective novel but well worth reading if you enjoy that sort of thing, which I do. I downloaded this one from girlebooks.

Miss Butterworth is a genteel and fairly well-heeled spinster of the parish of Granmercy Park in New York and she likes to keep an eye on the movements of her neighbours. (Who does that remind me of?!) When she sees a couple entering a house across the road very late at night she wonders what’s going on. She knows that the house owner is away and the house is empty.

In the morning she forces a policeman to enter the house and they discover the body of a young woman under a large cabinet. Who is she? Is it murder or suicide?

Miss Butterworth has no great faith in the detective who is investigating the case, Mr Gryce, and she determines to carry our her own inquiries.

There are lots of twists and turns in this book to keep you interested and there’s humour too in the character of Miss Amelia Butterworth. I can’t help thinking that Agatha Christie probably read this book and came up with her English spinster, Miss Marple as a consequence. I hope to read more books by Anna Katharine Green.

Miss Marple by Disney?

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I’ve just heard on the radio that Disney have bought the rights to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. I suppose that if I were on Twitter this is the sort of thing that people tweet about, but I’m not on Twitter so I’m moaning about it here.

What on earth were the people at Disney thinking about when they decided to cast a 38 year old woman in the part of Miss Marple? Have any of them ever seen a Miss Marple film or TV production?

The whole reason for Agatha Christie writing a character like Marple is that she is an elderly lady, a spinster of the parish of St Mary Mead and people are supposed to think that she’s in her dotage and so they don’t take her seriously.

Marple is meant to surprise everyone and triumph over them all with her superior wits and a long experience gained from observing the inhabitants of her very small village.

They are going to lose the whole essence of the Miss Marple books if they do it any other way. Poor Agatha Christie will be birling in her grave, but I suppose her family felt that they could be doing with the money.