The Moving Finger

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is an easy read that has a charming setting and we\’ll delineated characters. With a whole town full of people to choose from, the question is who is writing the poison pen letters. Later in the book there is a death and then a murder. The story arch is just terrific! Who is it that has turned the sleepy country town into chaos? You won\’t be disappointed in the outcome.

The Moving Finger This is one of Miss Marple\’s mysteries where she does not make an appearance until close to the end. You follow the story through the eyes of Jerry and his sister Joanna as they move to the small village of Lymstock. Jerry is recovering from a plane crash and needs the small-time village life. Of course, this does not last long as anonymous letters are making the rounds. The letters are nasty but the murder they lead up to is worse. Who can find the murder among the village characters? Enter Miss Marple. A great mystery as always from Agatha Christie.

I guess I\’m getting frustrated with Agatha Christie and her \”Miss Marple\” series. \”The Moving Finger\” is the third in that series. I have no idea why. \”Why what,\” you ask? Well, why it\’s called a \”Miss Marple Mystery,\” I answer. There is no reference to Miss Marple until the end of Chapter 9 (about 69% of the way through the book — and note that the book ends where my Kindle says 93% complete since there\’s the usual filler at the end). She makes her first appearance in the next chapter where she says a handful of sentences of no special import and then disappears until about 80% through where she makes a couple of more pronouncements. Then, she\’s done (except for her recounting what really happened at the end). But, wait, there\’s more. Not only is there no Marple here, the book isn\’t even written in same style or tone as the previous two books: it\’s written from the perspective of an outsider, has no common characters, and is in a different village (town). About the only thing in common with the previous books (specifically, \”The Murder at the Vicarage\”) is that reading it feels like nothing more than living through the petty backbiting and gossiping of a small town. If the writing hadn\’t been technically decent (though I cringed at the \”character\” of the protagonist), I\’d have rated it lower. But, even though I\’m not happy with the Marpleness of the book, I guess I\’ll be charitable and rate it at an OK 3 stars out of 5. The novels featuring Miss Marple are: 1. The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple Mysteries) 2. The Body in the Library (Miss Marple Mysteries) 3. The Moving Finger: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries) 4. A Murder Is Announced: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries) 5. They Do It With Mirrors: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries) 6. A Pocket Full of Rye: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries) 7. 4:50 from Paddington (Miss Marple Mysteries) 8. The Mirror Crack\’d from Side to Side (Miss Marple Mysteries) 9. A Caribbean Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries) 10. At Bertram\’s Hotel (Miss Marple Mysteries) 11. Nemesis: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries) 12. Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple Mysteries)

The plot is pretty basic and straight forward. There\’s no real originality among the characters. It\’s an incredibly boring book and does not do well to maintain your interest. Also, Where the heck is Miss Marple? She doesn\’t appear until you are nearly 3/4 done with the book and even then she\’s disappears for many pages and only reappears to solve things real quick and explain things to the reader. Such a disappointment of a book, This is the last Miss Marple book I\’m gonna read.

Agathie Christie is, indeed, the greatest of all mystery writers. As in all her books, there’s a light shining on England during the first half of the 20th Century, including the bigotry and names they assigned to foreigners. Just a reminder that the US isn’t the only place that’s fought the “isms” for centuries. This particular book is a Miss Marple book. She doesn’t enter the book until very late and wasn’t there for long before she solved the case. Christie has been my obsession during the pandemic. At last count I’d read 24 of her books in 2020. I would gladly recommend them all.

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