Two Miss Marple Short Stories by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie wrote a slew of short stories. Many featured her celebrated detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, and a few included her detective duo, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. And many were standalones, mysteries, thrillers, spy stories, and even a ghost story or two.  

The woman was a writing machine.

Two of her Jane Marple stories are “The Case of the Perfect Maid” and “The Herb of Death.” Both are vintage Marple. 

 

In “The Case of the Perfect Maid,” the village of St. Mary Mead is buzzing with the news – a maid has been fired by two elderly sisters living together, supposedly on the grounds of theft. Miss Marple’s own maid, a good friend of the fired woman, asks her to “put things right;” there was no way her friend would have stolen anything. And Miss Marple pays a visit, discovering what the rest of the village has learned – a replacement maid has been installed, ad she may be the best maid ever to grace the village. But something is off, and Miss Marple knows it.

 

Agatha Christie

In “The Herb of Death,” a group of weekend guests (including Miss Marple) are gathered together, telling stories. One woman tells the story of a great tragedy, in which a young woman died of poisoning after eating foxglove mistakenly mixed with sage. The odd thing is that no one else at that fatal dinner got sick. So, what happened? Miss Marple quietly beings to piece together what really happened.

 

In her lifetime, Christie became an international institution, writing scores of novels and stories and selling millions of books. One interesting fact: She wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles, her first novel, after a bet with her sister Madge. After rejections by six publishers, it was finally published four years later.

 

These short stories are what we call “cozy mysteries” today. Blood and gore is limited; gn graphic scenes of sex or violence. They are period pieces – and they’re great fun to read and solve along with Miss Marple.

 

Related:

 

“The Lamp” – A Ghost Story by Agatha Christie.

 

Two Short Stories by Agatha Christie.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Stack Underflow: Losing the Craft of Coding – Jarett Malouf at The New Atlantis.

 

The Passing of the American Century – Lee Congdon at Modern Age.

 

The 1776 New York Campaign: 250 Years Later – Daniel Welch at Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

One of the Deadliest Persecutions Against Christians in History – Samuel Sey at Slow to Write.

 

Edith Cavell – Brussels, Dawn, October 12, 1915 – A London Inheritance.