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"You, my dear, if I may call you that, have a natural flair for justice, and that has led to your having a natural flair for crime. I want you to investigate a certain crime. I have ordered a certain sum to be placed so that if you accept this request and as a result of your investigation this crime is properly elucidated, the money will become yours absolutely. I have set aside a year for you to engage on this mission. You are not young, but you are, if I may say so, tough." - Nemesis, p. 22
The Sum of It
Miss Marple, quite the rheumatic old lady, has taken to daily perusing the obituaries to see if she knows any of the deceased. One day, she notes that her old compatriot from A Caribbean Mystery, Mr. Rafiel, has passed away. She's awfully sad about that and thinks to herself that she wishes she could have seen him again before he died. Soon she hears from his attorneys saying they've got something for her from the deceased, and could she come to London? Upon visiting said attorneys she learns that Mr. Rafiel has left her a large sum of money on the condition that she solve a mystery for him. Only he leaves not a single clue as to what the mystery is. Miss Marple is not quite sure if she's going to be able to undertake this task. She tracks down his old secretary and can't learn anything from her, except that Mr. Rafiel did have a few kids, one of whom was a deadbeat son.
Pretty soon she gets notice that passage for her has been booked on a tour of the great homes and gardens of a certain part of England, by Mr. Rafiel, and every accommodation has been made for her. This must be part of the mystery! Off she sets on this bus tour, scrutinizing each of her fellow passengers to see who might be involved in the mystery. She recognizes one lady who had chatted with Miss Marple in St. Mary Mead not too long before, only she had different color hair... mysterious. She befriends a handsome, intelligent lady who used to run a girls school and eventually confesses to Miss Marple that she's not just on the tour to check out fancy homes and gardens, but that it is a "pilgrimage" of sorts to find out about a former pupil of hers who died, she says, because of love. Aha, thinks Miss Marple, now I'm onto something...only then this lady is killed by a boulder while walking on a path during the tour and Miss Marple can't get anything else out of her!
Mr. Rafiel has also arranged for Miss Marple to stay with three sisters in their crumbling estate while she's in the village where her new friend has been killed, and Miss Marple distinctly senses that SOMETHING is up with these ladies, though she's not sure what exactly. She also discovers that at least one other person on her tour has been planted there by Mr. Rafiel to help keep an eye on her and help her parse out clues. She's getting closer and closer, and as she tours the little village, ever watchful, chatting up the post office lady and dropping into people's homes for tea, she gets closer and closer to the truth til everything comes to a head with a late night encounter with a dangerous person in Miss Marple's bedroom!
The YOA Treatment
I don't know what it is about Miss Marple. Maybe because Agatha herself was a still clever but pretty old lady at this point, but this book is totally on point. I love how the mystery gradually unfolds from knowing only that there IS a mystery of some kind to one by one learning new pieces of the mystery, and THEN moving on to actually solving it. Miss Marple does a bit of Poirot-style "well I think I know something but I can't tell you til I figure out this other thing and make sure I'm right," which keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Even though this one is set outside of St. Mary Mead, it is set in another small country village, and Miss Marple seems quite at home here. It also provides yet another example of not judging a book by its cover. Just because Miss M is a little old lady who gets tired out from a trip to the post office doesn't mean her mind isn't valuable and sharp as ever. Even Mr. Rafiel, who judged everyone around him pretty harshly, had the utmost respect for Miss Marple's mind, and counted on her to solve a mystery very dear to his heart as his last wish!
While there is a bit of circling and circling around the main point of something, or slightly repetitive rehearsal of facts, this is still a solid and enjoyable read. I'm actually adding this one to my favorites list, which is well populated by Miss Marple books at this point! I think one thing I have consistently enjoyed about the Miss Marple stories, as well as other Agatha books with female leads, is that Agatha doesn't really write them like she thinks its unusual that a woman would be so clever and capable in the face of mystery and danger. While she certainly demonstrates that others around her might be mystified by this possibility, Agatha's language and style in writing these characters is not showy or like "haha-see-how-I-prove-a-big-point," and the characters themselves don't even make a big deal out of what they're doing, she just quite casually lets ladies save the day over and over again.
In my opinion, this little old lady detective still fit right in Agatha's wheelhouse, even near the very end of her writing career.
- E.
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