The Murder at the Vicarage

A furtive and bizarre murder in the vicarage of the quaint English town of St. Mary Mead has the authorities baffled. The victim is the disagreeable Colonel Protheroe, who is universally disliked. “Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,” declares the the vicar, in whose study the colonel is found dead, “would be doing the world at large a favour!” Many others in the village have said that they would like to see the colonel dead, but a number of people have a more specific interest in his death: the colonel’s young wife, Anne; her lover, the artist Lawrence Redding; Archer, a local man given a harsh sentence by the colonel for poaching. Even the colonel’s daughter, Lettice, desperate for money, says, “If only father would be decent and die, I’d be all right.” These complexities lead to any number of dead ends for local investigators. The only one able to see through the many blinds and obscurities is Miss Marple, an elderly but sharp-eyed spinster. In this, the first of sixteen Miss Mar