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Marple: Twelve New Stories

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About this listen

 A brand new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Crime’s legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by twelve remarkable bestselling and acclaimed authors.

Read by Alex Kingston, Adrian Scarborough, Adjoa Andoh, Imogen Stubbs, Alison Steadman, Jodhi May, Chipo Chung, Cathy Tyson, Ramon Tikaram, Tanya Reynolds, Celia Imrie and Miriam Margolyes.

This collection of twelve original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie’s Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery.

·Naomi Alderman

·Leigh Bardugo

·Alyssa Cole

·Lucy Foley

·Elly Griffiths

·Natalie Haynes

·Jean Kwok

·Val McDermid

·Karen M. McManus

·Dreda Say Mitchell

·Kate Mosse

·Ruth Ware

Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by twelve Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time.

©2022 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Amateur Sleuths Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Crime Fiction Detective Fiction Mystery Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Crime Short Story

Critic reviews

'Each author captures Christie — and Marple — perfectly, while also displaying just a bit of her own unique touch’ – The Washington Post

‘Without a doubt, the greatest mystery writer of all time’ – Ragnar Jonasson

‘A hundred years after her first novel, and we are all still standing in her shadow’ – Andrew Taylor

‘Agatha Christie is the gateway drug to crime fiction both for readers and for writers’ – Val McDermid

‘She gives us an insight into human nature that few, if any, have surpassed’ – Susan Lewis

‘Dame Agatha has sold more books than all besides Shakespeare and the Bible’ – David Baldacci

‘All crime fiction writers around the globe owe Agatha Christie a massive debt’ – Peter James

‘Reading a perfectly plotted Agatha Christie is like crunching into a perfect apple: that pure, crisp, absolute satisfaction.’ – Tana French
All stars
Most relevant
A great shame that a collection of outstanding Miss Marple tribute stories was let down by unexpected and unwelcome poor editing - how could this be allowed to happen?

Poor editing

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I have been a fan of Mrs Christie since I was in my early teens and obviously I’ve long ago exhausted her repertoire of stories. So I was pleased to see that a collection of Miss Marple short stories was available.
Well, I listened to them and felt this was very much a mixed bag of the decent and the rather lame. One story reminded me very much of a certain Martin Guerre and another was - and admitted as much - a ripoff of Dorothy L Sayers. I didn’t feel that many of them hit their mark, sadly. Maybe it was the fact that they were all short stories with little development.
Good old nephew Raymond gets plenty of airtime and Miss Marple seems to do a lot of ‘twinkling’. I did wonder if the authors had been ordered to use the word.
So I think I’ll treat myself and go back and listen again to the likes of Nemesis and other ‘proper’ Miss Marple escapades.

PS. It would appear that the editor has sorted out the glitches in Celia Imries’ narration as I listened carefully and nothing untoward was apparent

The proverbial curate’s egg

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The stories are great. The narrators are all excellent. The editor needs to learn to listen… there are multiple occasions where there are lines repeated, including in one chapter where the narrator repeats a line twice and the coughs to clear her voice and then repeats more lines. It’s a real shame these issues have been missed because they dampen what is an otherwise excellent production.

The stories themselves are fabulous though. This is a real book of love for Miss Marple. I loved it. The changing narrators added to this book, with each Marple take having a different book.

I really recommend you give this a listen if you love Miss Marple. And I really recommend the editors spend a day relistening and editing!

The audiobook need a better editor

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Enjoyable Successors to Christie's stories, some set in slightly more modern times. They manage to be new without being unbelievably Marple. Would recommend

Stories:
Evil In A Small Place
The Second Murder At The Vicarage
Miss Marple Takes Manhattan
The Unravelling
Miss Marple’s Christmas
The Open Mind
The Jade Empress
A Deadly Wedding Day
Murder At The Villa Rosa
The Murdering Sort
The Mystery of the Acid Soil
The Disappearance

Authors:
Lucy Foley
Val McDermid
Alyssa Cole
Natalie Haynes
Ruth Ware
Naomi Alderman
Jean Kwok
Dreda Say Mitchell
Elly Griffiths
Karen M. McManus
Kate Mosse
Leigh Bardugo

Narrators:
Alex Kingston
Adrian Scarborough
Adjoa Andoh
Imogen Stubbs
Alison Steadman
Jodhi May
Chipo Chung
Cathy Tyson
Ramon Tikaram
Tanya Reynolds
Celia Imrie
Miriam Margolyes

Enjoyable Successors to Christie's stories

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Some of these stories are better than others, but I’m glad the authors mostly resisted the temptation to move Miss Marple to America, as often seems to happen in these.
Ruth Ware recycled a Peter Wimsey story in a way that comes across less an homage and more plagiarism.
The Mystery of the Acid Soil seems unedited, bizarre repetitions, coughing etc made it very difficult to follow along.

Variable quality

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