#ReadThis @AgathaChristie @HarperCollins @Morrow_PB #TheMurderattheVicarage by #AgathaChristie #First #1 #MissMarple #Mystery #ReadChristie2022
It's never been who you know and no one knows that better than Legendary, Prolific, English Mystery Novelist Extraordinaire Agatha Christie. With perfect grammar and practically perfect everything else, Christie is the most widely published author of all time outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. During covid we started reading her with her tales of Hercule Poirot, which we reviewed the entirety of from beginning to end and only recently finished. If you have yet to read Christie, what are you waiting for??!?! This is her 38th review on Whom You Know as we believe there are 37 Poirots but who's counting. We'd rather be reading.
Today we mark the beginning of her other main character: Miss Marple.
Christie is not a one-trick pony!
We look forward to hearing about more misadventures in St. Mary Mead, hometown of Marple.
If you thought scandals involving priests are something new, you ought to know that Christie was writing about it fictionally in 1930. Narrated by the Vicar himself, The Murder at the Vicarage sets the stage for small-town gossip and intrigue and boasts a cast of characters quite vivid for a town that may be dull to people used to Manhattan.
It's hard not to think of Poirot and all his little gray cells if you know him first. But when you look at the facts quite closely, you might see you need to look a bit beyond them in Marple style.
Some questions that now we know are timeless in 2022 compared to 1930 arise in your head:
Who's making fake phone calls?
Who's having the affair?
Is unpopularity worthy of death?
Lots of questions...but only one answer! Agatha Christie.
Murder at the Vicarage is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
Previously on Whom You Know, we have raved about Agatha:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
https://www.whomyouknow.com/2020/11/readthis.agathachristie.perilatendhouse.peachydeegan.harpercollins.williammorrow.html#.X7lGvGhKg2w
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
and we took a break from only him and did him with others in Midwinter Murder
and returned to only him with Death in the Clouds
The ABC Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Sad Cypress
One Two Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Under Dog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man's Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Halloween Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain Poirot's Last Case
About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only in the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, around thirty plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now-legendary Hercule Prior with her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In 1930, Miss Jane Marple made her first full-length novel appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage, quickly becoming another beloved and enduring character to rival Poirot's popularity. Additional series characters include the husband-and wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap opened in 1952 and is the longest running play in history. Academy Award-nominated actor and director Kenneth Branagh helmed the acclaimed major motion picture Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and its sequel, Death on the Nile, starring in both films as the Belgian detective. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. The one-hundred-year anniversary of Agatha Christie stories and the debut of Hercule Poirot was celebrated around the world in 2020. Whom You Know will never stop celebrating it!
