Returning to the Scene of the Crime!: The Body in the Library 2.0

(image from here)

"A knock came at the door. Automatically from the depths of her dreams Mrs. Bantry said: 'Come in.' ...Out of the dim green light Mary's voice came - breathless, hysterical: 'Oh, ma'am, oh, ma'am, there's a body in the library.'"

-The Body in the Library, p. 2

The Sum of It:

Much of the delight of The Body in the Library comes from its inclusion of two of my favorite Christie characters, Dolly Bantry and Miss Jane Marple. While we've met Dolly Bantry before (most notably as a mystery/riddle dinner party participant in perhaps the only Christie short story collection I actually enjoyed, The Thirteen Problems), in The Body in the Library, Dolly is at the same time a bit of a victim, suspect, and crime solver. 

While enjoying a dream-filled sleep, Dolly Bantry is dramatically awaken by her maid with the info that there is a BODY IN THE LIBRARY. Like, literally. Initial investigation by Dolly and husband, Arthur, finds that there is indeed the body of a young woman in their library, but the Bantrys have no idea who she could be. After bringing in the police, the library body is identified as Ruby Keene, a young woman who worked at a nearby-ish hotel. It appears young Ruby had endeared herself to a rich hotel resident (gosh, I love these books with the people who are like "oh yeah I just live at this fancy hotel!" Like for real, no sarcasm, it sounds so fun!) named Conway Jefferson, who had just decided to leave Ruby a bunch of money in his will instead of his own family (*MOTIVE ALERT*)! 

Although Mr. Jefferson turns out to be a pal of the Bantrys, it's still very unclear why Ruby's body should have turned up in their library. When suspicion of the Bantrys's involvement continues to pervade St. Mary Mead, Dolly brings in her old pal, Miss Jane Marple, to help with the investigation!

The YOA Treatment:

The Body in the Library has always been one of my favorite Christie stories, and so it was one of the first picks for my list of books to read for THIS year of Agatha! I love the meta-ness Agatha brings to this particular novel. She references her self-awareness in her forward where she talks about having stored up ideas about how to pull of the cliche storyline of a body in a library. She even has a character talking about HERSELF as a mystery author at one point. The overall effect is a bit whimsical for the first half as the police and Dolly Bantry and Miss Marple traipse around the village and the Majestic hotel, sussing out alibis riddled with letter writing and bridge playing and tennis partners and whatnot. However, in true Agatha fashion, she pulls out a twist and a half at the end, bringing back clues from early on that you had completely discounted, and ending somberly with a reminder that murder is always tinged with evil.

I left The Body in the Library with a solid opening to our third (!) Year of Agatha, and heartily recommend it for anyone looking to soak in a classic Christie whodunnit in 2018.

Cheers!

-A.

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The Old Man and the Twee: The Body in the Library | 1941

Image from the blog Pulp Covers

"Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid, spinsterish face and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it as all in the day's work. Her name's Miss Marple. She comes from the village of St. Mary Mead, which is a mile and a half from Gossington; she's a friend of the Bantrys and, where crime is concerned, she's the goods, Conway." 
- The Body in the Library, p. 101

The Sum of It:

Yayyyy you guys it's Miss Marple! This is only like the second legit full Miss Marple novel I've gotten to read this year and I have been so excited about it. I remained excited through the reading of it, because this one is great (is that starting to sound like a blog cliche? For real though, so many of them are really great, which is why Agatha has been crowned Queen of Mystery millions of times over in loads of countries. So we're all on board, yeah?) It all begins in an "Oh What a Beautiful Morning"-esque scene at Miss Marple's friend Dolly Bantry's estate #Oklahoma #UKnotOK #RodgersandHammersteinandAgatha. Don't believe me? Give this a whirl: 

"Mrs. Bantry was dreaming. Her sweet peas had just taken a First at the flower show. The vicar, dressed in cassock and surplice, was giving out the prizes in church. His wife wandered past, dressed in a bathing suit, but, as is the blessed habit of dreams, this fact did not arouse the disapproval of the parish in the way it would assuredly have done in real life. 

Mrs. Bantry was enjoying her dream a good deal. She usually did enjoy those early-morning dreams that were terminated by the arrival of tea. Somewhere in her inner consciousness was an awareness of the usual noises of the household. The rattle of the curtain rings on the stairs as the housemaid drew them, the noises of the second housemaid's dustpan and brush in the passage outside. In the distance the heavy noise of the front-door bolt being drawn back.

Another day was beginning. In the meantime, she must extract as much pleasure as possible from the flower show, for already its dreamlike quality was becoming apparent."

In some of her more lyrical writing, Agatha is basically depicting waking up in a grand house as the opening scene to a Broadway musical. We half expect Mrs. Bantry to subsequently be dressed by birds, BUT INSTEAD she is awoken by a quivering housemaid who busts in the door to inform the Bantrys that there is a body in the library!

Turns out there is a random stranger's corpse in the library, a young woman with platinum blonde hair, too much makeup (even in death), a cheap dress, and varnished fingers and toes. Who is this girl?? Why is she dead in the Bantrys' library? How did she get there? So many mysteries right away, and Mrs. Bantry naturally calls in Miss Marple tout suite. Eventually we learn that she's a temporary dance hostess from a resort hotel in the area who had recently gained the favor of a wealthy and aged hotel guest, Conway Jefferson, who is wheelchair-bound, though quite acute otherwise. Bantry had recently decided that he was going to adopt this rando (whose name, in life, was Ruby) and bequeath upon  her a fortune, leaving his daughter-in-law, her son, and his son-in-law, totally up a creek (his actual children died in a plane crash and he had been keeping these two semi-relatives close since then). Right away, then, there's a couple suspects: the two semi-relatives who were on the brink of being bumped out of a fortune. One problem: both have alibis. Agh so whodunnit?? The rest of the cast involves a bridge hostess, tennis coach/handsome dancing pro, a dude who can't find his car, a man who works in films, a girl guide (aka girl scout), and even a quick stop-in with our friends at the St. Mary Mead vicarage from #blogfavorite Murder at the Vicarage!

There are like four detectives on the case, one of whom is familiar with Miss Marple and wisely advises everyone else to let her in on the huddle, because he knows her to be one sharp lady. As usual, we get quite a few St. Mary Mead anecdotes-as-evidence, including a frog jumping out of a clock, as well as some Miss Marple realness on how the world is dark and full of terrors #thenightisdarkandfullofterrors. In part because the ending is not quite the same as the tv Marple version, I did NOT know who the culprit was til she FINALLY revealed it at the very end. 

The YOA Treatment:

So there's a bit of treatment in that summary, but this book provided yet more evidence that Miss Marple is really a winner. I think both of us going into this year felt sure we were Poirot devotees, and have come to realize that Miss Marple is at least giving him a run for his money. She is so clever, yet unassuming, and gets to the heart of the problem each time. In her autobiography, Agatha notes that her real interest in murder mysteries is not the criminal, but the victim. Miss Marple seems to reflect that interest in her detecting as well, always sympathetic. 

Agatha also seems to really enjoy giving her characters some flaws, and where  Poirot is quite conceited and so particular as to be ridiculous at times, Miss Marple's nosiness, seemingly absent-minded human interaction style, and frank statements sometimes rub other characters the wrong way. However, what she may lack in manners, in my opinion, she more than makes up for with her truly dark sensibility about the general depravity and evilness of the human condition #heartofdarkness. All through this book, she's cautioning people to basically not give anyone too much benefit of the doubt, and in the end, that's the reason she solves the mystery and leaves the police in her dust. 

This book was a fun read and satisfies the Marple craving nicely, for those who are so inclined (or even for those who don't know they are!)

- E.