Miss Marple: The Thirteen Problems/The Tuesday Club Murders
“Human nature is always interesting… And it’s curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way.”
p 167
Hello!
Today, I am here to talk about the Miss Marple introduction we deserve, known in the UK as The Thirteen Problems and in the US as The Tuesday Club Murders. And in fact, a few of these short stories did appear in print before the Murder at the Vicarage, so I feel justified in making this statement.
The Book
I am realizing as I start this reread that I have actually not read a lot of the Miss Marple books in their original form as this was new to me too!
These short stories are mostly excellent themselves, and as a collection, the structure is incredibly simple and effective. Agatha Christie was popular for a reason, and I sort of love seeing her flex her skill so deftly in what is actually a very short book. It is loosely split into two parts, both of which involve a group of people sharing mysteries and trying to guess the answers.
The first part is a series of 6 stories in which 6 people, including Miss Marple, her nephew Raymond West, and a few others get together every Tuesday to discuss a mystery that one of them knows the answer to. Needless to say, Miss Marple solves them all, even as the rest of them are stumped.
The second part takes place at a future dinner party, where a former member of the Tuesday Club remembers Miss Marple’s skill and the guests all get involved with a final 7th case when one of the dinner party guests, a Scotland Yard inspector calls on Miss Marple to help him solve a murder.
My favorite short story involves a mystery that actually hasn’t happened yet, but overall these are fun, quick, and enjoyable. While it easily could get tiring to have Miss Marple solve these so easily, the fact is that because there is a variety of crimes and the solutions are arrived at via different ways, it ends up being fun instead.
Adaptations
While I would totally watch this, the story collection with the surrounding Tuesday Club/dinner party has never been adapted in full. However, some of these stories have been adapted on their own or integrated into other short stories or books.
All of these feature Julia McKenzie who played Miss Marple in the latter half of the 2000s show Agatha Christie’s Marple. She is sweet and I really enjoy her as an actress, but I find her Marple to be a bit too young and proactive to be true to the Marple of the books. She has a tendency to chase down policemen and insert herself into situations, where the book Marple tends to be quieter, at least in the stories I have read.
The Thumb Mark of Saint Peter:
Greenshaw’s Folly (Agatha Christie’s Marple) 2013 – Julia McKenzie
As the cast photo might indicate, there is a LOT going on in this episode. Between the million plots and characters, the story gets a bit hard to follow, but I do think they did a relatively decent job of integrating two short stories and this show will make an appearance later in this reread when I get to the complete short stories.
The Blue Geranium:
The Blue Geranium (Agatha Christie’s Marple) 2010 – Julia McKenzie
This is a very embellished version of the book with a lot more death in it than the original, but I really enjoyed it. The overarching structure, in which Miss Marple interrupts a court hearing to convince everyone that the murderer is someone other than the man accused of it is quite fun and leads to some fun scenes.
The Herb of Death:
The Secret of Chimneys (Agatha Christie’s Marple) 2010 – Julia McKenzie
So the actual Herb of Death portion of this is actually very small, and most of the plot is from the book The Secret of Chimneys which I haven’t read. I found myself a little bored by the beginning of this book, but once they got into secret tunnel and past lover territory I quite liked it.
So if you haven’t already picked this up in this post, if you are not reading along with me, I highly suggest you pick this up first and then read Murder at the Vicarage.
Either way, in two weeks I will be back talking about a book I have actually read a couple times in the past, The Body in the Library!
