12 December: Miss Marple

Agatha Christie’s Marple with Geraldine McEwan was first shown on TV on this date in 2004. 10 facts about Miss Marple:

1. Miss Marple features in 12 novels, and 20 short stories written by Agatha Christie. Her first appearance was in a short story story published in The Royal Magazine in December 1927, called The Tuesday Night Club, which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems. Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and her last appearance was in Sleeping Murder in 1976. The only story written from Miss Marple’s point of view was the short story Miss Marple Tells A Story.

2. She lives in a fictional village in the south of England called St. Mary Mead.

3. Agatha Christie is said to have based Miss Marple on her step-grandmother, Margaret Miller, and her friends. In Christie’s own words, Miss Marple was "the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my step grandmother's Ealing cronies – old ladies whom I have met in so many villages where I have gone to stay as a girl".

4. The name is not, as some believe, coined from Marple railway station, which Christie would have passed through on the train, but from a visit to a sale at Marple Hall.

5. Before Miss Marple, Christie wrote about another spinster sleuth called Caroline Sheppard, who appeared in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. However, when that novel was turned into a stage play Caroline was portrayed as a young girl, against Christie’s wishes. She believed old maids should be represented and re-used some of her material about Caroline to create Jane Marple.

6. Miss Marple never married and has never worked for a living. She is of independent means. She has servants, a succession of maids which come from a nearby orphanage. Miss Marple trains them up to get jobs as housemaids. Her only living relative is a nephew, a writer called Raymond West, who often underestimates her.

7. Her age is rarely mentioned. Some novels imply she is about 75, but in 4:50 from Paddington, published almost a decade earlier in 1957, she says she will be "90 next year."

8. She had a comprehensive education. She studied at an Italian finishing school and studied human anatomy as part of an art course.

9. Jane Marple is described as an attractive, thin, old lady, with a twinkle in her blue eyes. Her hobbies include gardening, Knitting and gossiping.

10. As well as Geraldine McEwen, she has been portrayed by many actresses including Margaret Rutherford (pictured), Angela Lansbury, Gracie Fields, Joan Hickson. In a Radio 4 series, she was voiced by June Whitfield.

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Themes 

Christmas; superheroes; reunions; parties; life choices; shocking surprises; mistaken identity; kidnap and rescue.

Reasons not to read it

• It's a bit short. You could probably read it in one sitting.
• Most of the action takes place at a Christmas party. In a palace.
• It's all about Christmas but there doesn't seem to be a schmaltzy moral message.
• There are a couple of babies and some small children in it - and one nearly gets eaten.
• Santa appears in it, but he isn't really Santa.
• Superheroes. Again.
• Not to mention a whole bunch of super-villains. Again all new ones and not the ones we know from Marvel or DC.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle