Marple: Twelve New Mysteries

Marple: Twelve New Mysteries is a new collection of short mysteries starring the classic Miss Marple, all written by different modern suspense writers.  Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Natalie Haynes, Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, Karen M. McManus, Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse, Ruth Ware. I was so excited to read this as soon as I heard about it because this list includes some of my favorite non-gory suspense writers.  Then I started to see this cover all over bookstagram as friends got their review copies in, and I was anxiously waiting for it to be my turn at the library.

These short stories are so fun! With Agatha Christie‘s Miss Marple mysteries, you’re never wondering if the mystery will be solved or who will figure it out. You know Miss Marple’s gonna remember what the butcher’s delivery boy said to her housemaid last Thursday before choir practice, and that will save the day. The fun is in figuring out which details are clues… and in laughing at the characters who underestimate Aunt Jane. I was worried there wouldn’t be enough time to really get a mystery going in these short ones, it this works perfectly, they’re all solid mysteries. Maybe because we already know Miss Marple, and her nephew Raymond, and St Mary Mead and all, so the story can focus on the mystery.

I almost always love Janeite retellings, mostly because I love seeing how other authors see our mutual favorite characters, and also because I want more Lizzie Bennett and Mr Darcy. Same thing here happened here — I loved seeing how other Christie readers saw Miss Marple, and it was great to get more of her adventures. I loved seeing the mix between the writing style of authors I like and recognize, and how they imagined our mutual friend, Miss Marple. (The Murdering Sort was wonderfully true to the Agatha Christie inheritance dramas, and it was also wonderfully true to the other McManus stories I’ve read… so the villain was exactly who I thought it was.) Most of these stories felt like tributes to the great mystery writer.

Oh, the photo? After I said I’d waited patiently for my library turn? So, after I read the library ebook, I was thinking about how it was really an all-star collection and I’d like to read it again. And again. So when I stumbled onto this lovely, barely-even-opened copy in the used-book store where I’m pretty sure it was misfiled with the older Christie novels and not with the more expensive hardcover new releases, obviously I snapped it up.