Mrs Butler's Blog Number 13

Number 13 November 2005

I have done a lot of reading but I haven’t had as much time to record it now that I am back at school. So some if this may be a little sketchy because I can barely remember the
details.

You may recall the pack of Agatha Christies which was such a bargain from The Book People. All ten titles turned out to be Miss Marple mysteries – Miss Marple Pack, it said on the delivery label which may have been a clue. I dipped into The Thirteen Problems, which is a book of (thirteen) short stories, in which the finest brains are turned on apparently insoluble mysteries but they are all solved, in a very domestic way, by the old lady knitting in the corner.

I also read The Moving Finger, which by coincidence featured in a weirdly retro radio play about two batty sisters who run a ‘public library’ (afternoon radio can be as dire as daytime TV!). I noticed that it had been published in 1943, which explained why the very gentlemanly hero had to be a wounded pilot; I doubt if a non-combatant would have appealed to her wartime readers. It involved a small village, plagued by anonymous letters. Miss Marple only appeared at the end and it all ended happily with our hero marrying an etiolated half-wit – well, Christie laid it on a bit thick to make you think the girl might have been a mad murderess.