A Caribbean Mystery

A Caribbean Mystery (1964) Agatha Christie

This has always been my favorite Miss Marple mystery, probably because I got to watch part of it on TV, with Jameson Parker as Tim Kendal, which is important, because I was a HUGE Simon & Simon fan. (And I just now realized that Brock Peters played Dr. Graham!)

Ah, what fond memories…

OK. I’m back. I almost got sucked into IMDB, but managed my saving roll.

A Caribbean Mystery finds Miss Marple in the Caribbean, where her nephew Raymond has sent her to help her recover from pneumonia. The story opens with her only half listening to Major Palgrave (“An elderly man who needed a listener so that he could, in memory, relive days in which he had been happy”) when he starts to tell her a story of a murderer–a man who most likely go away with murdering at least two wives–and thus the stage is set for the upcoming murders.

Except, of course, that the first death is that of Major Palgrave.

But what I love most about these stories is their sense of timelessness. So much of what she wrote could be set in current time, and one would hardly notice a difference.

I’ve always remembered this bit, and tried to use it as a guide.

“Nothing special you want, is there?” he asked. “Because you’ve only got to tell me–and I could get it specially cooked for you. Hotel food, and semi-tropical at that, isn’t quite what you’re used to at home, I expect?”
Miss Marple smiled and said that that was one of the pleasures of coming abroad…She picked up her spoon and began to eat her passion fruit sundae with cheerful appreciation.

Why go somewhere new, only to eat what you always eat?

And I love this bit as well:

He greeted Miss Marple pleasantly and asked her what the trouble was. Fortunately at Miss Marple’s age, there was always some ailment that could be discussed with slight exaggerations on the patient’s part.
…
Miss Marple had been brought up to have a proper regard for the truth and was indeed by nature a very truthful person. but on certain occasions, when she considered it her duty to do so, she could tell lives with a really astonishing verisimilitude.

And Miss Marple’s thoughts on murderers:

“As far as I can make out,” said Miss Marple, “and from what I have heard and read, a man who does a wicked thing like this and gets away with it the first time, is, alas, encouraged. He thinks it’s easy, he thinks he’s clever. And so he repeats it.

Alas, I’m slowly reaching the end of the Miss Marple stories, and I’ll be sorry when I’ve finished them all. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the rest of Agatha Christie’s writing, it’s just that I’m so very fond of Miss Marple…
Rating: 8.5/10

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks

 
 

• Browse the archives:
  
• Death’s Excellent Vacation » »
• « « The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side