Every body say hi to Jay over at This is My Truth Now. He’s hosting this month long love affair with the first lady of mystery, Agatha Christie. This week’s book was The Body in the Library.

The basics (Courtesy of Goodreads):

Colonel Bantry has found the strangled body of an exotic blonde bombshell lying on his library hearth – and the neighbors are beginning to talk! When Miss Marple takes an interest, though, things begin to move along nicely, and its all far more convoluted – and sordid – than the genteel Bantrys could have imagined.

A curmudgeonly financier, his self-absorbed adult children, a couple of pragmatic and clever hotel workers, tons of money and influence, a wild local lad, some smitten girls, the film business, mix into a classic Christie plot filled with twists, turns, and double-backs galore. Plus the glorious settings of A Great House, a fancy Hotel, and an excessively genteel little village, and let’s not forget Miss Marple…

 

My Thoughts:

This is one of my FAVE Aggies. I adore Miss Marple. She’s so straight forward in a lovely, polite, mid Victorian manner. Nothing people do shocks her. In fact, she can often guess what and why before anyone else because she knows people. Miss Marple insists everyone is much the same, human nature being so predictable. I often wonder if Agatha Christie was rather like Miss Marple in a large amount.

This book lays claim to awesome quotes like “fairly made the toe of my boot itch.”

The plot is amazing and to explain why it’s amazing I might have to spoil it a bit. So stop reading now if you hate spoilers.

Just a little pic to break it up.

Now back to the spoiling. The whole book it’s forced on you that only two people have a reason to kill Ruby and they both have air tight alibis. All that forcing makes you think it must be someone else right? A forced card like that provokes a reaction. But…

It is actually one of them. And the alibis are for naught as there is a second dead body, a little switcharoo.

Brilliant!