Miss Marple

Late one afternoon in the English village of St. Mary Mead, the vicar's wife, Griselda Clement, began ticking off the names of the "old biddies" she was expecting shortly for "tea and scandal." Her list of local gossips ended with "that awful Miss Marple." "I rather like Miss Marple," her husband, Len, observed. "She has, at least, a sense of humor."

He might have warned, though, that she's also a lady who comes to stay. Introduced in that rather offhand fashion in Agatha Christie's 1930 novel The Murder at the Vicarage, Miss Jane Marple is now in her seventh decade as the world's most popular elderly spinster sleuth. First described by Christie as "a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner," Miss Marple was already 70 in 1930 and must now be nudging her way into the record books.

The preceding is an excerpt taken from the book,
MYSTERY!: A Celebration, by Ron Miller
(published by KQED Books).
For more information, visit Shop.