Marple: Twelve New Stories: A brand new collection featuring the Queen of Crime’s legendary detective Miss Jane Marple, penned by twelve bestselling and acclaimed authors

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Another favorite in keeping with her traditions was “The Mystery of the Acid Soil” by Kate Mosse, which begins with a train ride to visit a childhood friend. The Open Mind by Naomi Alderman - Miss Marple gets invited to an Oxford dinner where she meets a particularly obnoxious scholar. This was just a bit bland overall, and not helped by my dislike of books about academia. The mystery elements felt a bit pointless. 2/5. Interestingly, this new Miss Marple collection is far from the first set of works to be authorised on an author's behalf after their death. Foyle's War creator Anthony Horowitz has penned new works authorised by the estates for Ian Fleming and Arthur Conan Doyle. Sophie Hannah has written new Hercule Poirot mysteries. Mary? Murdered? There must be some mistake, Jane. What motive could anyone have for murdering Mary? It's not as if she's got the brains to be a threat to anyone. Or enough personality to provoke a murderous thought.'

The Open Mind" by Naomi Alderman (2 stars)-I did not like this at all. It takes place in what, 1970 I think. The whole story just read off to me I think. Probably because I imagine in my head this takes place after "Nemesis" and it just doesn't read as a Miss Marple heading towards the end of her life. While Agatha Christie eventually grew tired of Hercule Poirot, describing him as ‘an egocentric creep’ and devising a deeply divisive ending for him, she retained her affection for the far more personable Miss Jane Marple. From her first appearance in The Tuesday Night Club, a short story published in 1927, through to her final appearance in the 1976 novel Sleeping Murder, Miss Marple solved a host of crimes over the course of 12 novels and 20 short stories, often while sitting in an armchair and knitting. Evil in Small Places" by Lucy Foley (5 stars)-Honestly this was probably one of the better stories in the collection. Foley has obviously read Dame Agatha Christie before. She fundamentally gets the character. Unfortunately some of the other authors do not. This story follows Miss Marple after she goes to visit with an old school friend. After finding the newest choir mistress dead, Miss Marple realizes who did it and why. I have always enjoyed Agatha Christie books as well as the many films and television series over the years. I have read and enjoyed all of her novels so it is pleasing to read other popular authors pay a huge compliment to her memory by writing a Miss Marple story themselves. This made fascinating reading and was very entertaining throughout, I particularly enjoyed the stories by Ruth Ware, Elly Griffiths and Kate Mosse. Miss Marple enjoys herself tremendously in New York in Miss Marple Takes Manhattan by Alyssa Cole, where the redoubtable spinster unravels the skullduggery taking place at a theatre adaptation of one of her nephew Raymond’s novels. In The Unravelling by Natalie Haynes, Miss Marple sorts through a sad tale of the fallout from men returning from war.Her father is Geoffrey Alderman, an academic who has specialised in Anglo-Jewish history. She and her father were interviewed in The Sunday Times "Relative Values" feature on 11 February 2007.[2] It was always going to be difficult to sum up a book with many individual authors, some of which are firm favourites. I am happy to say that I enjoyed most of them, 'The Second Murder At The Vicarage' by Val McDermid, 'The Mystery of the Acid Soil' by Kate Mosse and 'The Disappearance' by Leigh Bardugo in particular...these were all lifted by superb narration too. There were always going to be a few I didn't enjoy.

Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Agatha Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by twelve Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time. (goodreads) My Review Impressing me with a different approach was “Murder at the Villa Rosa” by Elly Griffiths which was told from the POV of Signor Jeffries, who meets Miss Marple in picturesque Italy. She was more of a secondary character but as always, she makes herself very useful with her “knowledge of human nature “.I listened to the audible version of this over just a couple of days. Overall, I really enjoyed it. As with all collections of short stories, especially those with different authors, I enjoyed some of the stories more than others. Some were really good, almost as good as the originals by Agatha Christie – my favourite author. It was nice to hear of the same characters, places or experiences from the original stories in some of them. All of them five stars. These three seemed to have a little more substance and depth than the others, no mean feat in a short story! The others ranged from 3 - 4 stars, with only one at 2.5 stars. Age is cruel and crueler still to women. A woman becomes a ghost when she stops being worth looking at." Given that she was “born” in a short story, it seems only fitting that this new collection of Miss Marple works should be comprised of short stories (though if the folks in charge of Christie's estate want to authorise some full-length novels, we'll happily read those, too). Authors & Stories Included in the Collection Evil In Small Places By Lucy Foley - Marple takes a detour to visit an old school friend and becomes embroiled in the mysterious murder of a former French singer. Because of course she does. A great closed circle mystery that has a very distinct beginning, middle and end. Is it entirely original? No. Is the killer really obvious? Yes. However this still retains that nostalgic feel of a good Christie story, and Marple is as sharp as ever. 3/5.

I learned from the introduction that in 1927 Miss Jane Marple first arrived on the scene, and her final appearance was in Agatha Christie's last novel in 1976 - the year that Christie died. That's quite a legacy and how amazing that twelve different authors came up with a new story for her! Why Miss Marple, thank you so much for returning to us with some delightful new tales! Of course, I'd love to sit down with a cup of tea and scone and listen to them with you. (This collection was an absolute delight.)And, you can be sure that she will wear tweed, do some knitting and gardening, and have tea or Cherry Brandy, and sometimes even tea with Cherry Brandy which both go surprisingly well with village GOSSIP! Murder at the Villa Rosa, Elly Griffiths ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ this story did not have Christie’s essence (in my opinion) but the writing was very good Look its not that any of these stories is especially terrible. In fact a few A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell in which Miss Marple solves a particularly nasty poisoning at a wedding with the help of a friend who's basically her Caribbean doppelganger and The Disappearance where someone very close to Miss Marple (and familiar to anyone who's ever read one of her books) is responsible for the death of a nefarious young man, were clever and engaging enough to keep me guessing. The Disappearance, which is the last story, has a style that feels closest to Agatha Christie, and Miriam Margolyes does an excellent job of narrating. Probably the best of the lot. She's the only one who nails Miss Marple. All of the others read her as basically an old woman, but she injects a bit of herself into Marple, bringing her alive. She also does the other characters very well. The story is also great.