Podcasts about Marple

Nous retrouvons cette chère Miss Marple pour l'épisode de ce mois, dans le roman Jeux de glaces.Une amie d'enfance de Miss Marple, Ruth Van Rydock, lui demande de rendre visite à sa soeur, Carry Louise Serrocold car elle a un mauvais pressentiment la concernant. Miss Marple se rend donc à Stonygates, un vieux manoir victorien anglais. Lewis, le troisième mari de Carrie Louise, fervent défenseur d'une approche bienveillante envers les délinquants juvéniles, dirige dans un bâtiment voisin un centre de réinsertion pour jeunes délinquants.Peu de temps après l'arrivée de Miss Marple à Stonygates, c'est le beau fils de Carry Louise qui est assassiné. Miss Marple va devoir aider la police à découvrir qui des résidents du manoir a bien pu commettre ce meurtre.C'est Flore, une fidèle auditrice qui nous a tenu compagnie pour cet épisode.Toutes nos informations sur le linktree d'Agatha Chrimstie Agatha Crimstie est un podcast du label Podcut. N'hésitez pas à venir papoter sur le Discord du Label Participez à la vie du label en donnant sur Patreon  Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

I mellankrigsdeckaren fanns en ordning som kunde återställas. Malin Krutmeijer följer utvecklingen in i ett allt djupare mytologiskt mörker. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna. Häromsistens var jag på ett föredrag om fabriksarbeterskor i Malmö fram till 1930-talet. En historiker berättade om hur de kämpade mot en särskilt hårdnackad rik fabrikör som anställde elaka, tafsande förmän och tyckte de anställda borde vara tacksamma över att ha ett jobb överhuvudtaget.Om denne fabrikör hade varit med i en deckare från 1937 skulle han nog ha blivit mördad. Det året var det nämligen idel stygga typer i chefsposition som gick åt, berättar förläggaren och litteraturvetaren Anders Bergman i sin bok ”Brottsplats 1937”. Där har han analyserat hela åttio deckare som kom ut just det året. Det vimlar av affärsmän och allehanda bossar som får vad de förtjänar. Polisen eller detektiven som utreder fallet kan till och med visa sympati för mördaren, även om rättvisan måste ha sin gång.Det här är knappast ett scenario som läsare av nutida kriminallitteratur känner igen. Vi som badat regelbundet i deckarfloden sedan sent 1900-tal har ju dränkts i fullständigt groteska mord där offren verkligen inte har gjort något som står i proportion till vad de utsatts för. De har ofta varit kvinnor men i princip kan de vara vilka som helst. De hålls som fångar i veckor, blir rituellt lemlästade, levande begravda och allt möjligt. Förståelse för mördaren? Tror inte det.Ofta nöjer sig mördaren heller inte med att döda en gång. Han – för det är oftast en man – har en så kallad signatur som han upprepar tvångsmässigt. Han kan triggas av ett visst utseende eller något annat som ofta påminner om saker i hans förflutna. Varje stackare som uppfyller kriterierna och hamnar i mördarens uppmärksamhetsfält riskerar att bli offer.Seriemördaren gjorde egentligen entré med Jack the Ripper under det sena 1800-talet, men begreppet myntades av FBI först på 1970-talet. De kartlade seriemördare och utarbetade en metod för psykologisk profilering. Detta fick stort inflytande på kriminalromanen, där mördaren blev en verklig fixstjärna. Det är ju han eller hon som bär svaret på gåtan som ska lösas, men seriemördaren är mer än så: en ohygglig avvikelse bortom normal logik. Här fungerar det inte att, som i 1930-talets deckare, söka efter motiv i den mänskliga naturens girighet, hämndlystnad, svartsjuka, vrede och desperation. I en av pseudonymen Lars Keplers böcker heter det rentav att mördaren inte går att besegra ”eftersom han utnyttjar det faktum att människor älskar varandra”.Den som ska utreda morden konfronteras med något ofattbart och måste ta sig in i mördarens psyke. Är han måhända fixerad vid snygga kvinnor i 20-årsåldern? Varför måste han absolut skära brösten av dem innan han sakta dränker dem i en speciell vattentank? Ja, jag parodierar en slentrianmässig misogyni som tyvärr har funnits i den här subgenren.Om vi lämnar mördarna därhän och istället tar en titt på dem som utreder brotten så är de också en helt annan typ av karaktärer än sina motsvarigheter under 1900-talets mellankrigstid. Som författaren och litteraturforskaren Carina Burman skriver är många av guldålderns detektiver kvinnor, och de är ofta modellerade efter käcka flickbokshjältinnor. De är utbildade, kavata och sakliga – med andra ord väl skickade för att lösa de brottsfall de snubblar in i.Som jämförelse är dagens mordutredare, om jag ska generalisera, allt annat än käcka. De är envisa slitvargar och jakten på mördaren är rena Golgatavandringen. De kämpar mot inkompetens och korruption i poliskåren, jobbar dygnet runt, sover inte och äter knappt. Ofta blir de sjuka och skadade och ibland nästan dödade. Lars Keplers polishjälte Joona Linna är ett exempel – han får massor av stryk genom den våldsmättade bokserien.Ett annat, av många, är den brottsutredande journalisten Mikaela Sköld i Johan Brännströms ”Skallben”. Hon är riktigt illa däran efter att i förra boken ha blivit skjuten i huvudet. Men nog måste hon ändå gå en match mot en vidrig superskurk, samtidigt som hon genomför en mödosam rehabilitering, har minnesluckor och hallucinationer.Det kan eventuellt vara Henning Mankells Kurt Wallander som utlöste den här självuppoffrande, destruktiva trenden. Wallander hade ganska kass hälsa från början, men drabbas så småningom i bokserien av fetma, diabetes och till slut även alzheimers sjukdom. I sin avhandling ”Snuten i skymningslandet” beskriver filmvetaren Michael Tapper honom som totalt utbränd när han famlar sig fram i ett sönderfallande samhälle. Han gör också den pricksäkra iakttagelsen att Wallander aldrig har varit mer Kristuslik än i Kenneth Branaghs gestalt i BBC:s filmatiseringar av böckerna.De samtida mordutredarna är med andra ord inga miss Marple eller lord Peter Wimsey, som la mordpussel utifrån möjlighet, motiv och medel, i regel utan risk att själva gå åt på kuppen. Och mördarna är inga okända släktingar som vill inkassera ett fett arv, eller några näriga fabrikörer som jäklas med folk.I 1900-talets mellankrigsdeckare fanns det en ordning som kunde återställas. Numera är själva ordningen satt ur spel, och mordutredaren en självförbrännande låga i en mörk värld. Hon eller han jagar omnipotenta brottslingar med säregna drivkrafter.Det är lätt att tänka att deckarens förändring avspeglar en allmän känsla av förlorat hopp och ökande misstro. I de yttersta tiderna förslår inte en kavat tjej med huvudet på skaft som kan ta fast tjuven. Här behövs ett tyngre artilleri: någon som är redo att bära sitt kors och sin törnekrona i en strid mot ondskan själv. Ett annat sätt att se på kriminallitteraturens förvandling är mer teknisk. Sedan deckarens första storhetstid har underhållningsbranschen sett en masskulturell revolution. Den har inneburit en tendens att höja de dramatiska insatserna. Man vill väl tränga igenom och bjuda på största möjliga effekt.I dagens deckare går det att se influenser från uppskruvade genrer som skräck, noir och inte minst superhjälteserierna. Superhjältarna föddes i slutet av 1930-talet, de är släkt med grekiska gudar men samtidigt genuint moderna. De har både extrema krafter och sårbarheter, och slåss gärna mot fascistoida, omnipotenta skurkar. Nog liknar exempelvis Stieg Larssons hämnande hacker Lisbeth Salander en superhjälte mer än en kavat och präktig deckarhjältinna från samma tid. Den Kristuslika kommissarien är inte väsensskild, men är hämtad från en symbolvärld som kanske ligger närmare i medvetandet hos deckarläsarna.Sådana här hjältar behöver värdiga motståndare för att spänningen ska maxas. Lisbeth Salander har haft sina kvinnohatare och nazister, andra har istället seriemördaren, komplett med fasansfull blodtörst och dunkla motiv. Där står vi nu, med perversa mördare som endast kan bekämpas av – ja, gudalika inkarnationer i poliskåren?Lite märkligt är det, och många gånger storslaget underhållande. Vad det säger om oss och det samhälle vi lever i vet jag faktiskt inte riktigt.Frågan är om ens en sargad kommissarie, van att tampas med mörkrets makter, skulle kunna lösa den gåtan.Malin Krutmeijer, kulturjournalistLitteratur:Anders Bergman: Brottsplats 1937. Guldåldersdeckaren under lupp. Alephs deckarbibliotek, 2025.Carina Burman: Drottningar och pretendenter. Om guldålderns deckarförfattarinnor. Albert Bonniers förlag, 2023.Lars Kepler: Lazarus. Albert Bonniers förlag, 2018.Johan Brännström: Skallben. Ordfront förlag, 2024.Michael Tapper: Snuten i skymningslandet. Svenska polisberättelser i roman och film 1965–2010. Nordic Academic Press, 2011.

To mark (Aldridge) the occasion of Mark Aldridge's latest book being available in PAPERBACK for the first time, Gray and Mark sit down to watch and natter through Murder at the Gallop (1963), the second of four 1960s films starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. You can purchase Mark's book, Agatha Christie's Marple: Expert on Wickedness in paperback, ebook and audio now!WE'VE WRITTEN A BOOK! You can pre-order The Swinging Christies: How Agatha Christie Conquered the 1960s ⁠NOW⁠!You can find us on Instagram ⁠@Christie_Time⁠. We are also on Bluesky at ⁠ChristieTime.com. Our YouTube account is @TheSwingingChristies.  Our website is⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ChristieTime.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.Our other podcast, Westmapod, launched on 31 March 2026 - just search Westmapod in your podcatcher of choice to check it out!Please subscribe to the podcast so you're notified every time an episode drops.Please also consider giving us a star rating and/or reviewing us on your podcatcher of choice.The Swinging Christies is a Christie Time project by Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown. Artwork designed by Bartlett Studio and Tom Double.00:00:00 - Opening titles00:00:44 - Introductory chat00:02:36 - Commentary track for Murder at the Gallop (1963)01:20:41 - How to get in touch01:21:58 - Closing titles01:22:17 - CodaSolutions revealed - After the Funeral, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

What a delight to talk to laura thompson about Agatha Christie. Above all, this episode was fun. Laura really does know more than anyone about Agatha and we covered a lot. What did Agatha Christie read? What did she love about Shakespeare? Was she pro-hanging? Why so much more Poirot than Marple? Why was she so productive during the war? We also talked Wagner, modern art, the other Golden Age writers, nursery rhymes, TV adaptations, poshness, nostalgia, Mary Westmacott, and plenty more. TranscriptHENRY OLIVER: Today I am talking to the very splendid Laura Thompson. All of you will know Laura's Substack. She has also written books about the Mitfords, heiresses, Lord Lucan, many other subjects, and most importantly today, Agatha Christie, who died 50 years ago. And there's a new book coming from Laura about Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance.Laura, welcome.LAURA THOMPSON: So lovely to be here, Henry. I'm such a fan of your Substack, as you know.OLIVER: Well, same. Same. This is a mutual admiration call.THOMPSON: Well, thank you. Well, that's what we like.Christie's Favorite WritersOLIVER: Now tell me, what did Agatha Christie like to read?THOMPSON: Oh, a lot the same as us. I discovered she was a huge fan of Elizabeth Bowen, as we are. And Nancy Mitford, Muriel Spark. But her big love really was Dickens. She absolutely adored Dickens. I mean, she grew up in a house full of books, you know, and she wrote a screenplay of Bleak House for which she was handsomely paid. And it was never—I know, don't you long to know what that was like? Can you imagine—OLIVER: We've lost it? We don't have the typescript?THOMPSON: I've never seen it. I mean, maybe—I don't know whether it exists somewhere. But I just wonder how she tackled it, what she did. But yes, so that happened. And of course, Shakespeare, as we know from her books, which are full of subliminal and—I mean, you kind of notice them, but you don't have to.OLIVER: Yes. There's Shakespeare in every book?THOMPSON: No, but it's there, particularly Macbeth, which I suppose figures.OLIVER: Yeah.THOMPSON: Like The Pale Horse is completely Macbeth themed. And when I was a kid reading them, I think she really—Tennyson she uses a lot—she affected my reading in a good way.OLIVER: She sent you back to Shakespeare and the poets?THOMPSON: Well, sent me to them as a kid, probably. And also, there's a lot of Bible in her books, as I'm sure you've noticed.OLIVER: Yes. Yes.THOMPSON: Very easy facility with quoting the Bible.Christie and ShakespeareOLIVER: Now, what did she learn from Shakespeare? Because she clearly knows the plays in detail. She sees them a lot. She reads them. She and he are, I think, quite good plotters.THOMPSON: Is she even better than he is?OLIVER: Well, let's not get into that. But there is a sort of, in a funny way, a kind of affinity between them as writers.THOMPSON: That's so interesting.OLIVER: What do you think she learned from him?THOMPSON: Tell me how you—how you see that.OLIVER: Well, do you know that Margaret Rutherford adaptation, which probably you don't like and I do—THOMPSON: Go on.OLIVER: It's called Murder Most Foul, isn't it?THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: And there's something about the way that they can both walk the line between the sort of dark and deadly and the histrionic. Margaret Rutherford can't walk that line, but Agatha Christie can, right?THOMPSON: That's really interesting.OLIVER: And Miss Marple could come onstage in a couple of the plays. She's not so far off from being a Queen Margaret or some—in her angry moments maybe, do you think?THOMPSON: More rational, maybe.OLIVER: Much more rational.THOMPSON: Not so mad. Well, she's not mad, Margaret, is she? But she's upset.OLIVER: She starts off as a much sort of nastier character—Murder at the Vicarage, right?THOMPSON: Yes, she does. She was more acidic and then gradually—OLIVER: Waspish.THOMPSON: Waspish, and sort of mellowed. I see what you mean. And almost in the way that she calls herself—although that's obviously not Shakespeare—calls herself Nemesis.OLIVER: And the sense of atmosphere.THOMPSON: Yes, and the way they're structured. That's not necessarily just true of Shakespeare, but there is this sort of act three entanglement and this beautiful act five resolution that goes on with a soliloquy, I suppose.OLIVER: And some people think they both get confused in act four, but that's obviously not true, that this is the real mess of the plot. I think she might have learned quite a lot from Shakespeare, right?THOMPSON: That's really interesting. But, you know, the way she writes about Shakespeare in her letters to her second husband, Max, because when she was living in London during the war and almost at her most productive—I mean, her productivity levels are insane. And hitting every ball for six, really, you know: Towards Zero, Five Little Pigs, a couple of Westmacotts, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But she spent a lot of time going on her own to see Shakespeare.She's very—I hope I'm right in saying this—she's very sort of Ernest Jones [CB1] in her approach. She doesn't regard them so much as the products of words on a page; she regards them as rounded characters. Why were Goneril and Regan the way they were? What's wrong with Ophelia? You feel like saying, “Well, whatever Shakespeare wanted it to be,” but she sees them in that way. And Iago particularly—OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: —is the one that gets her. Yes. In one of her, I better not say which, but a major, major novel.And the book that she wrote under the name Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree, which I think might well be her best book of all. I think—well, I'll just say she wrote these six books under a pseudonym, Mary Westmacott. People call them romantic novels; that's sort of the last thing they are. And they're very, very interesting mid-20th-century human condition novels, and they're full of lots of stuff that she had to distill for the detective fiction. And she talks a lot about Iago in The Rose and the Yew Tree really interestingly, I think.Christie on Shakespeare?OLIVER: Now, Max said she should just write a book about Shakespeare, all this Shakespeare all the time. But she didn't. Why?THOMPSON: No. I don't think she ever liked being told what to do.OLIVER: [laughs]THOMPSON: His letters to her are quite annoying, aren't they?OLIVER: Yes, yes. I've only read what's in your book, but yes, I didn't warm to him.THOMPSON: I'm glad because people do. He gets a really good press even though he was unfaithful. But it worked, the marriage, because they both got what they wanted from it. But he said that, yes, and she says, “Oh no, they're just thoughts for you.” I don't think she would've felt the need, somehow. I think she liked saying things in her own more oblique way.OLIVER: Save it for the novels.THOMPSON: Yes, she's a great mistress of the indirect, I think, really. The way she writes about Macbeth in The Pale Horse, which I think is a really underrated novel, including thoughts on how it should be staged, which are really interesting and very, very good. I think she would've preferred to do that and use it to her ends.And of course, she has an incredibly powerful sense of evil, which I suppose is also in Shakespeare. Hers is a Christian sensibility, I mean, no question. People never talk about that, but it really is.OLIVER: Was she pro hanging?THOMPSON: Well, I think she took a kind of utilitarian approach that the innocent must be protected. And she took a view that if you've killed once, it becomes very easy to kill again because something in you has shifted, so you become a danger to the community. So I suppose in that sense she was.I mean, Miss Marple was. She's quite—“I really feel quite glad to think of him being hanged.”OLIVER: It's one of her most striking lines.THOMPSON: It is, isn't it?OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: So I suppose she was. I mean, I suppose she was. You know, she's very modern, she's very subtle in her thinking, but at the same time, she is a late Victorian product of her society. Yes.Dickens and Christie's FamilyOLIVER: Now, you mentioned this Bleak House script. She loved Bleak House. Do we know what she loved about it? It's obviously the first detective novel. Are there other factors?THOMPSON: You are going to know—this is when I'm going to start coming across as an idiot. Is it written before The Moonstone? Yes, of course it is.OLIVER: I think so. Yes. Yes. It's the first time there's a police detective in a major English novel.THOMPSON: Okay. I think she—do you know, this is a really good question. I don't actually know why she loved Dickens so much. She grew up—she had that rather intriguing upbringing whereby she had two much older siblings, a sister who was 11 years older, a brother who was 10 years older. Father died when she was 11.So she grew up incredibly close with a really rather intriguing mother, Clara. This is in the house at Torquay. And her mother encouraged her in a way that, it seems to me, quite unusual for the time and for the class to which she belonged. Because it was never deemed that it would interfere with her marrying and leading a more conventional life. But she always wanted to express herself creatively. And I think her mother possibly was a frustrated creative. I don't know. She had a lot of go in her.And whether it was just something she read with—I think anything she did at an early age with her mother would've made a huge impression on her. I think what you read when you're that age, you never quite—I never read Dickens at that age, so I've never quite got the habit.OLIVER: But if she's born in 1890, presumably her mother is just about old enough to have been alive when Dickens was alive. And so she's got a somewhat direct—THOMPSON: Yes, she was.OLIVER: You know, it's sort of back to the original culture of it, as it were.THOMPSON: Yes. Isn't that extraordinary?OLIVER: Yes. Yes. It's crazy to think. So she must have taken it in maybe in a more original way, somehow?THOMPSON: Possibly. Certainly Tennyson, I get that feeling, because her mother wrote this rather leaden sub-Tennysonian poetry. [laughter] It's like Tennyson on the worst day he ever had, but worse than that.OLIVER: But worse, yes.THOMPSON: Yes. And she wrote poetry like that, the mother, which is really rather sweet and touching to read. And obviously she would've been alive at the same time as Tennyson. So, yes, I'd never, ever thought of that before. Isn't that extraordinary? I mean, they went to see Henry Irving.OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: Yes. And yet she feels—it just amazes me, this—so I'm leaping slightly here, but this 21st-century halo of cool that she has around her, Agatha Christie. [laughter] I know, it's awful in a way, but the way she can be reinterpreted—that is a bit Shakespearean, in a way.I don't mean to make extravagant claims, but there's a sort of translucent quality to what she writes that means that people can impose and pull it and twang it and know that she won't let them down, as we are seeing constantly at the moment.Art and MusicOLIVER: Yes. No, I agree. Other arts—we know about all this, she loves reading. What music did she enjoy, for example? Did she like paintings?THOMPSON: Yes, she loved paintings. She liked modern art. She was painted by Kokoschka. It's very good. And she writes about modern art. In Five Little Pigs, the painter in that is a modern artist.And then music was her grand passion. I mean, music was her original career choice, as you know, of course. She must have had a good voice. She thought she could make a career of it. And she could play the piano. Beautiful piano at Greenway, it's still there.And they used to do this thing—I think it's a lovely idea—as a family. They would fill in what they called the book of confessions, and it would be questions like, “What is your state of mind? If not yourself, who would you be?” And at the age of 63, which is the last time she filled it in, she wrote, “An opera singer.” So that was still what she would've dreamed of doing. She loved Wagner very, very deeply.OLIVER: Okay. Interesting.THOMPSON: And there's a Wagner theme in a very late book, Passenger to Frankfurt, the one that everybody hates except me. And music, I mean, as a girl when—so her voice wasn't strong enough for opera. I think her ultimate—same as I grew up wanting to be a ballet dancer, I think her ultimate would've been to sing Isolde at Covent Garden.And in some of her short stories and in her first Mary Westmacott, which is called Giant's Bread, which is about a musician—and she really inhabits this character, Vernon, and it's all about modern music. And somebody who knew about this stuff, which I don't, told me, “No, she knew. She knew what was going on. She knew about the trends.” This is in the late twenties.And she always went to Beirut, and that was her real, real, real passion. She was one of those restlessly creative people. And her mother, God bless her, encouraged it.Christie's UniquenessOLIVER: What is it that distinguishes her from the other detective fiction writers? Because she doesn't, to me, feel—she's obviously part of this whole generation, this whole golden age, whatever you want to call it, but she doesn't feel the same as them somehow.THOMPSON: No.OLIVER: What is that?THOMPSON: Do you think it's her simplicity, that distilled simplicity that she has? She doesn't write linear; she writes geometric, I always think.OLIVER: Tell me what you mean.THOMPSON: Well, if you think of a book, the one I admire the most, as I constantly go on about, which is Five Little Pigs—you think about the amount of stuff that's in that book. It's a meditation on art versus life. The solution is unbelievably intriguing, I think. There's a whole family psychodrama in there. And every move of the plot, she's also moving on a—every move of the plot is impelled by a revelation of character. So plot and character are utterly intertwined, distilled together.I don't think any of the others can do that. I think Dorothy Sayers would take twice as many pages. And she'd dot every i and cross every t, and she couldn't bear loose ends or anything, could she? And she liked to reveal her knowledge of other things, almost to—I think the others like you to know that they're a bit better than the genre, maybe. Their detectives are superhuman, almost; wish-fulfillment man, almost.She doesn't do that with Poirot. He's just pure omniscience, really, plus a few tics and traits and, you know, mustache. I think it's that distillation and simplicity and the way she inhabits the genre in a way that the others don't quite do. And at the same time, she's redefining it from within.OLIVER: There's something as well, I think, about—she gets past the kind of Sherlock Holmes model in a different way. They still all have a bit of an overreliance on that, maybe.THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: Whereas Poirot in, what is it? In something like, is it Murder in the Mews? Very sort of Sherlock and Watson—THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: —kind of dynamic. But within, I don't know, two or three novels, that's gone, and he's Poirot as we know him, as it were.THOMPSON: Yes, yes.OLIVER: And she kind of, as you say, makes it her own thing and goes off in new directions.Christie and the TheaterTHOMPSON: Yes. She's sort of conceptual and the others aren't quite, I think. She doesn't do—she does something completely different with the whole concept of what a solution is, it seems to me. She doesn't—it's not Cluedo, is it? It's not, there's six of them, and eventually it has to be one of them; however many tergiversations or however you say that word, you sort of know that. Whereas with her, it's: it's nobody, or it's everybody, or it's the policeman, or it's a child, or there's something bigger and bolder going on.And she writes—I think she writes very theatrically. I think she writes scenically. I think she's incredibly good at character and action. That scene where you know the girl's a thief because Poirot leaves out 23 pairs of silk stockings, and he goes back in the room and there's 19 or something like that, tells you everything. It's all in there.OLIVER: The solution to 4.50 from Paddington, which we shan't reveal, but—THOMPSON: That's Cards on the Table. But what I mean is, she's given us a little scene that tells us all we need to know about that person, really: a sort of timid thief who can't resist—OLIVER: Yes, but that's what I'm saying. At the end of 4.50, the solution is staged.THOMPSON: Oh, sorry. Yes.OLIVER: It is literally a little re-creation of the drama, if you see what I mean.THOMPSON: Yes, I do. Sorry, Henry. Yes, absolutely.OLIVER: No, no. We're crossed wires.THOMPSON: Yes, yes, yes.OLIVER: But she is very theatrical, yes.THOMPSON: No, you are absolutely right. That's a reenactment.OLIVER: Of something that was seen almost like in a—you know, the whole thing is very—THOMPSON: Yes, yes. Well, she was a great—I mean, obviously Shakespeare, but she was a great lover of the theater as a medium. And of course, she wrote plays, as we know, which I think are far weaker than her books, myself.OLIVER: Even The Mousetrap?THOMPSON: Especially. [laughter] When did you last see it? Or have you not—OLIVER: I've seen it once. I've seen it—you know, I don't know, before I had children, a long time ago. And I thought it was great. It was a lot of fun. The ending of act one, when someone opens a door and they say, “Oh, it's you.” It's very dramatic moments. You don't like it?THOMPSON: No, I think you're right. I wouldn't mind seeing it done really, really well. There's something strong at the heart of it, that theme that haunts a lot of her books about what happens to children who are unwanted.OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: Which is in loads of her—no, not loads. It's in Ordeal by Innocence. It's in Mrs. McGinty. That's, I think, because that happened to her mother. Her mother was given away as a child. Her own mother was a poor widow and gave up her daughter to be raised by her rich sister, which is not—it's not abandonment, but I think—OLIVER: Well, yes.THOMPSON: — it's not great. And I think all these things were absorbed by Agatha as a child. She grew up in what we would today call a house of—I hate this—strong women. I hate that “strong woman” thing, but they were strong women. Her mother was very, you know, as we've said, a sort of driving little person. And the rich grandmother, the poor sister, the dynamic there, they both fed into Miss Marple.And then her older sister, Madge, who was a big personality and actually had a play on in the West End before Agatha did, which I've always thought was extraordinary, just to write a play and have it on in the West End in 1924.And the men were—the father was feckless and charming and a rather grand New Yorker, he grew up as, and then settled in Torquay. And the brother was the Branwell Brontë. [laughter] He ended up a drug addict, which is also a type that feeds into her fiction: the man who could have made something of his life and goes wrong.The TV AdaptationsOLIVER: So all this theatricality in the books is obviously why she adapts so well to TV, and again, a lot of the others don't.THOMPSON: Yes, that's true.OLIVER: How famous would she be now without the TV adaptations?THOMPSON: Well, by 1990, so the centenary, she was a hell of a lot less—and that's really when the Poirots got going, which she never wanted. She never wanted—she didn't really want Murder on the Orient Express. It was only because it came via Lord Mountbatten. I don't know. I don't know because I think they're mostly not very good. I don't know what you think about the adaptations. But maybe that's deliberate, that they're less—if they drove you back to the books, you'd probably get quite a pleasant surprise.OLIVER: It's hard for me to say because I saw them all more or less after I'd finished reading her.THOMPSON: What did you think?OLIVER: I love Joan Aiken—not Joan Aiken, what's she called?THOMPSON: Yes, Joan Hickson is marvelous. Yes, absolutely.OLIVER: Hickson. I think she's just perfect because as you say, the simplicity, the not overstating. The “Pocketful of Rye” episode where she turns up and quotes the Bible, and the vicious older sister is there, and they have that moment. It's all so cleanly done.THOMPSON: Yes, I agree.OLIVER: David Suchet, I quite like him. I think he has those wonderful moments. “I cannot eat these eggs. They are not the same.” I think that's very good. It's very funny, you know, he gets it.THOMPSON: You prefer him in spats and art deco mode to when he became—he became like a de facto member of the House of Atreus by the end, hadn't he? It had gone very, very—OLIVER: I mean, I certainly didn't watch them all, no, no.THOMPSON: No. Well, I sort of had to.OLIVER: Yes, you did.THOMPSON: But I could never get through those short story ones. I don't think I've ever got—OLIVER: The moral sort of doom of it all, yes.THOMPSON: Well, the early ones, when they always had—you could see they'd hired a car for the day. [laughter] And I don't think I've ever got to the end of one of those.But I think—sorry, going back to your question, I think they probably did make a massive difference. You know, they're really, really popular. And whether she would have—what you think her—she might be read as much as somebody like Sayers if it weren't for all those adaptations. But then the fact of all those adaptations tells its own story in a way, because that wouldn't happen to one of the others, as you rightly said.Resurgence and PopularityOLIVER: No, they don't have that quality. And also, she was bigger than them. That's why they picked her, because she was bigger than them anyway.THOMPSON: And simpler. Because when I used to read them at university between the pages of Beowulf or whatever, like porn, [laughter] it was a bit mal vu. You read her for entertainment. But you certainly—I don't think—she's always been admired by a certain kind of French intellectual, hasn't she, for that subtextual quality that she has, that sort of fathomless quality that she has.But when I researched that biography, which I started in 2003, I can remember going on the radio. And names will not be named, but I was like a figure of fun with a couple of other detective writers, quite well known, who just sort of openly mocked me for taking her seriously and more or less said, “Oh yeah, we love her, but she's terrible” kind of thing. “Why are you taking her seriously?” I mean, it was regarded as a bit of a joke to take her seriously.I'm not saying I changed the game or anything like that, but I think there must have been a movement around that time in the early twenty-naughties—whatever the damn thing, decade's called—to start seeing that she is an interplay of text and subtext, facade and undercurrents, and these powerful foundations that underpin her books. Murder on the Orient Express is, you know, “Does human justice have the right to exert itself when legal justice has let it down?”There are these very strong—I think this is part of why she's survived the way she has. We intuit powerful truths underneath the Christie construct, if you like. I always say she's not real, she's true. I think she's incredibly wise about human nature, possibly more than any of them.You take a book like Evil Under the Sun, and there's a femme fatale who's murdered. “Oh, the femme fatale. No man can resist her.” Turns out she can't resist men. She's prey; she's not a predator. And of course, women who are so dependent on their looks and so on, that is what they are. They are prey. They're not predators. They're very, very vulnerable. Just a really small thing like that. And I just think, oh, you're very—there's so much easy wisdom in there somehow.And she deploys it perhaps differently—I mean, Ruth Rendell is wise, but it's very, “I am wise and you're going to pay attention to me.” You know what I mean? It's all very, “I'm very dark and very wise and very,” you know. I love her, but everything's so easy with Agatha. It's so, to coin a phrase, two tier. You can read them and have fun with them. You can read them and there's so much stuff going on underneath, and yet she presents this smooth face. I don't think any of the others are quite that resolved, if you like.Self-AdaptationsOLIVER: Now, you wrote that her own stage adaptations of The Hollow and Five Little Pigs lack the subtlety of the original books, quote, “almost as if Agatha herself did not realize what made them such good books.” How much of her talent do you think was unconscious in that way?THOMPSON: Yes. That's such a good question. I do think that, about those plays, it could have been that she just thought, “That's not what my audiences are going to want from me. They're just going to want to be entertained by”—we know she can do the other thing because of her Mary Westmacott books, where everything is laid out. They're not distilled at all; they're quite the opposite.I think they must have been such a pleasure for her to write because she didn't have to constantly—they're unresolved; they ask questions that don't have to be answered. She could have done that with those plays, I'm sure, but I think she would've thought people aren't coming to see them for that. I think she had a very good opinion of herself, in the best possible way.OLIVER: Hmm.THOMPSON: Like I said to you earlier, she didn't take a lot of notice of anything anybody said to her. Because it is like writing this other little book, the one I've just done about 1926. She was very acclaimed right from the start. I didn't emphasize that enough in the biography. And she was really recognized as very special right from the start.And I think it's extraordinary to me how—it's so difficult for us today, isn't it? We're so at the mercy of “That won't sell, don't do that, blah, blah, blah.” She really did not just plow her own furrow, but create that furrow in a way that you can only compare with, like, Lennon and McCartney. Or whether the time was absolutely right that they let her run, they trusted her to do what she wanted, and because she had the gift of pleasing readers . . .You do really feel, although those books are very tight and taut, you do feel an instinctive ease in what she's doing, an instinctive sort of—there's a kind of liberated—which sounds perverse because they are so controlled, the books. But I always feel she's doing exactly what she wants to do because she knows what it is and she knows how to do it. Because I think, would she be amazed that you and I are having this conversation now? I don't know that she would be, really. What do you think?OLIVER: No, I agree with you. I think she had what Johnson said, the felicity of rating herself properly. I think she knew she was really good.THOMPSON: You might know he'd say it right.OLIVER: Yes. [laughs] But there's a—I think there must have been something about—I think it's in Poirot's Christmas, one of those, where someone gets killed in the night in their bedroom, and they go up. And one of the women says, “Who would've thought the old man had so much blood in him?”And the quotation just sort of occurs to—I think there's quite a lot of that in Christie, right? Things are coming up and it fits. And she's good enough to run on instinct at times.THOMPSON: That's right. That's it. Exactly. That's absolutely right. Like the way she quotes from the—yes, I love the bit when she quotes from the Book of Saul in One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, which is really quite a profound novel about whether—I mean, it's terribly timely—whether it's better to be run by a corrupt capitalist or to let in the radicals. And as I said in the biography, the corrupt capitalist wins on points. But then another element enters, which is what power does to people. And that's when she quotes from the Book of Saul.And it's just like you said, this—an instinctive that she—I do always feel her as an instinctive writer, even though—her notebooks are intriguing because obviously some plots she really has to work away at. And yet they feel felicitous. A coup like The ABC Murders, and she's really—that went through lots and lots of iterations. But what she'll often do is scribble down a line of dialogue, a line of “There they are.” It's the whole—it's not bullet points, which is a loathsome concept. It reminds me of a bee going from flower to flower and knowing exactly which—and she's got this gift of knowing what flowers we're going to need.I sometimes fear I overdo it. I don't want be like one of those people who's writing a PhD on, what was the thing I said on Substack, gynocracy in St. Mary Mead or whatever. It's not—I do think that's a bit overdone these days, the rummaging in the subtext, because she's an interplay. And that's why I write that chapter in the book called “English Murder,” which is about the facade, you know, “smile and smile and be a villain.” And there's nothing more interesting. There's nothing more interesting than murder among classes who are trying to cover things up.And she does that—that's at the heart of golden age murder, I suppose. And I just think she does that better than anybody because she's so all the things we've been talking about. She's so distilled, she's so simple, she's so smooth, she's so instinctive. And she's doing it the way she wanted to do it because of your wonderful Dr. Johnson quote. She knew not to take notice of other people, including her—Quick Opinions on ChristieOLIVER: Should we have—THOMPSON: Yes. Go on.OLIVER: Sorry, sorry. Should we have a quick-fire round?THOMPSON: Please.OLIVER: I will say the name first of a few of her books—THOMPSON: Oh, god.OLIVER: —and then a few other detective writers, and you will just give us your unfiltered opinion: good, bad, ugly, indifferent.THOMPSON: Okay. What fun.OLIVER: You can “nothing” them if you want to.THOMPSON: Okay. [laughter]OLIVER: Hallowe'en Party.THOMPSON: Underrated. Very interesting on sixties counterculture and the effects of societal breakdown, et cetera. What do you think?OLIVER: I think it's a real page turner. I remember reading that for the first time. I loved it. Yes. Nemesis.THOMPSON: I can't keep saying the same thing. Underrated. [laughter] Very interesting philosophy of love in that book, I think. I think it harks back to her first marriage. However badly it turns out, it's better to have experienced it. It's quite a mournful novel.OLIVER: The Mr. Quin—THOMPSON: Oh.OLIVER: Oh, sorry.THOMPSON: No, no. Sorry. You carry on. Marvelous. So inventive, don't you think? Such a clever character.OLIVER: Why didn't she do more of him?THOMPSON: Yes, that would've been good. And she was always interested in the commedia dell'arte. She wrote poems about it as a girl. And the concept of Mr. Quin, yes, as this sort of evanescent figure who's also a moral force, isn't he really? Or—yes, I wish she'd done more. They're marvelous.OLIVER: Towards Zero.THOMPSON: Oh, top notch, don't you think?OLIVER: One of the best.THOMPSON: Yes, I agree. Frightening motive. Very Ruth Rendell.OLIVER: It's very distinct in her. I haven't read all of her novels, but it's very distinct.THOMPSON: But the plot is, again, typical of her because it redefines the word contingent. [laughs] I mean, Dorothy Sayers would be having palpitations. She's very bold and grand like that. “Oh, there's a loose end. Oh, who cares?” You know, I mean, it's so—it just drives along that book, doesn't it? Yes. But I agree with you, one of her best.OLIVER: Death on the Nile.THOMPSON: Quite moving, I think. I think it's one of those ones from the thirties that, again, is talking about love in a way that—I think it just strikes a personal note to me because she was very in love with her first husband, Archie Christie. And he did fall in love with another woman, and it did cause her extreme pain that some people said to me she never quite got over.And I feel that a little bit in that book. There's a shadow of something quite powerful in that book, I think. Again, very, very loose and lovely plot, but powerful. Would you agree? Very good on the place as well, I think, Egypt.OLIVER: I love it. I think the solution is great.THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: And it makes a really good film.THOMPSON: It's a great film, yes. Wonderful film.Other Mystery WritersOLIVER: Yes. Okay. A few other detective writers: Michael Innes.THOMPSON: You've got me. I haven't read him. Should I?OLIVER: Oh, I think you will like him. Yes. Try Hamlet, Revenge!THOMPSON: Okay. Okay. Oh, I like it already.OLIVER: Yes, yes, yes. Oh, this is exciting. Gladys Mitchell.THOMPSON: Can't get into her.OLIVER: No.THOMPSON: What do you think? Should I try a bit harder?OLIVER: I read two. I thought they were good. I was not intrigued.THOMPSON: No, somebody told—OLIVER: The ones I read—Spotted Hemlock is a wonderful, like, wow, that's great.THOMPSON: Okay. Okay. Somebody said to me, I know she really—no, I didn't—I read it in a book that she really hadn't liked Agatha Christie, but you know, who knows? All that Detection Club rivalry, you can imagine. But okay, Spotted Hemlock—if I'm going to read one, try that, yes?OLIVER: Yes, that's a great book. Margery Allingham.THOMPSON: Kind of love her, but I never understand her plots. I always feel I'm in a bit of a fog, but she's quite a good writer. Do you think? Or what do you think?OLIVER: She's good at the fog. She's good at that sort of whirligig sense that there's a lot going on—THOMPSON: Yes, whirligig.OLIVER: —and you've got to get to the end before they do, kind of thing.THOMPSON: Also, she had a pub in her sitting room. Now, I like a woman who has a pub in their sitting room.OLIVER: [laughs] E. C. Bentley.THOMPSON: You've got me again, Henry.OLIVER: Oh, The Blotting Book mystery. You'll like this.THOMPSON: Okay. Okay.OLIVER: The other one is not so good, but you'll like that a lot.THOMPSON: Okay.OLIVER: Edmund Crispin.THOMPSON: Didn't get on with him.OLIVER: Why not?THOMPSON: Don't know. Don't know. It sounds like I don't read the men, doesn't it? Which is not the truth at all.OLIVER: I think that's fair enough, isn't it?THOMPSON: Well, I don't know. I don't think anyone's ever come up with a really good reason why women have shone so brightly in this genre. I don't know. Why didn't I—I read that one, the toyshop one [The Moving Toyshop] or whatever. I don't know. I just didn't get on with it.OLIVER: Too glib?THOMPSON: Possibly.OLIVER: Bit flippant, bit sort of funny-funny?THOMPSON: Possibly. I just couldn't quite get hold of it in some way. I don't know.OLIVER: I quite like Edmund Crispin, but I do think he's got a bit of a “he's a very clever boy” about him.THOMPSON: Maybe that's what it was. Maybe that.OLIVER: Something, yes. G. K. Chesterton.THOMPSON: I haven't read Father Brown. Oh, this is awful, isn't it? I'm starting to sound like a radical feminist by accident.OLIVER: [laughs] Maybe that's what you are, Laura. Maybe you just need to admit it. [laughs]THOMPSON: No, it does. It sounds really bad because I do really love almost all the women. I just, I don't know why I haven't read him.Christie and NostalgiaOLIVER: Was Agatha a nostalgia writer?THOMPSON: No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think anyone who was a nostalgia writer would've written At Bertram's Hotel, which is an entire spin on the riff of nostalgia. Really clever. I think that's such a clever book. The way she traps us in her golden age, you know, this phantasmagoria of the re-created golden age. And then she says, “Ha, really fooled you.”I've written about this. I think she moved with the 20th century far more than is realized. I love those Cold War novels she writes about her dislike of ideologies. I love her postwar books about the fragmentation of the hierarchical society. I think she's—well, she's an incidental social historian, as are, I think, P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, but they're much more underlined about it. Again, I'm intrigued what you think. Do you think she is?OLIVER: I think there's definitely some quality, particularly to the Miss Marple stories—as you say, the social history sort of becomes a way of preserving something that's disappearing. One of them, written in the sixties—you can tell me which one—it opens with that description of all the new houses in the village and the mothers who give their children cereal for breakfast. And what sort of a thing is that to give a child? They should have bacon and eggs. Bacon and eggs is a real—you know, and she does have a real something heartfelt and real sense that this part of England is going, and this new thing is coming in.THOMPSON: That's true. That's absolutely true. That's The Mirror Crack'd. And it's—OLIVER: The Mirror, yes, yes.THOMPSON: Yes, and that whole thing of Mrs. Bantry's house has now been bought by a film star and blah, blah, blah. Yes, no, you are absolutely right. I didn't think hard enough before I answered your question.OLIVER: But no, what you said is also true. I can't sort of work out to what extent she regrets it, to what extent it's just useful material for her, you know?THOMPSON: Both. I mean, some of her late books, including Endless Night, I think, which is an incredibly modern book—that whole “me, me, me” culture of “I want, therefore I will have now,” which is written when she was quite an old lady. And then a book like Passenger to Frankfurt, which is—it's a bit sub–Brave New World, but it's very honest and pessimistic about a future—well, the one we are living in, really—full of fear and uncertainty and almost dystopian.She was a realist. You know, she is Miss Marple in a lot of ways. She was a realist in a way that I think a lot of us would find it difficult to be. And her American publishers were often—would sort of say, can she tone this down? Can she not have a young person who's completely evil? Readers want to know, is she going get any therapy? [laughter] And it's so true. There's quite a lot of that going on.She's very clear-eyed. So if she—I'm a bit nostalgic for Blur, do you know what I mean? I mean, you can't help it, in a way, like that brilliant example you give at the start of The Mirror Crack'd. But I would say her image is quite at odds with the reality of her in that way. But the image—OLIVER: And the adaptations don't help with that.THOMPSON: No. No. But at the same time, that Christie image, you know, the gentlewoman, the tea or the eternal bridge party, blah, blah, blah, that has a huge power of its own. So just being too iconoclastic about her, I think, is also a lie. Because I think, again, it's that interplay. She used the image, and the image—I hate the word cozy. I loathe the word cozy, but there's no denying that any book of that kind does have that quality. So I suppose even that's nostalgic in a way.Christie's PoshnessOLIVER: In a way, yes. How posh was she?THOMPSON: Good question. I've been thinking about that a lot. Quite, I would say. Quite grand, with that confidence. Her father really was—as I said, he was a young blade in New York dancing with Jennie Jerome and blah, blah, blah. And then it so happened that he ended up in Torquay, which of course then was very posh. And the fact that when she disappears, she disappears to Harrogate, [laughs] which is like the Torquay of the north.I remember her grandson saying to me, “She dealt with her literary agent. To her, he was staff.” You know, that kind of thing. Her sister, there is a—well, her sister ended up very grand indeed with a huge house up in Cheshire.I think she just had that internal confidence, really. She wasn't—and that there wasn't much money. I mean, there was very little money when she was growing up, as of course you know, but that didn't matter. I mean, her voice is insane. Her voice is, [affecting a posh voice] “Oh, it's lucky it just happens.” [laughter] But yes, there's a part of her that is real late Victorian upper middle class that, again, underpins her books.It's amazing really how broad-minded and cosmopolitan she was. But possibly, I mean, possibly that does—she was—you know, when she disappeared, she was described in foreign newspapers as an Anglo-American, the embodiment of Englishness, and that's how she was described. And then of course she was genuinely cosmopolitan in her love of travel and her love of other cultures and all that obvious stuff. Yes.Inspirations for Miss MarpleOLIVER: How much of her grandmothers is in Miss Marple?THOMPSON: Quite a lot, I would say, particularly the—OLIVER: Drawn from life?THOMPSON: Well, in an essential way not, because Miss Marple has no real experience of life in that way. We're occasionally told about some chap who came calling who wasn't suitable or whatever, but she's almost defined by nonexperience of life in a sense, but observation of life. She's an observer. She's not an outsider in the way that Poirot is. She has a place within the social hierarchy and whatever, and that village has a reality to it. And the way it changes has a reality to it. But she is defined by being an observer, I would say.But Margaret Miller, who was the rich grandmother, who is the one who had the big house at Ealing and was—you know, she's the one who would go to the Army and Navy stores and all that stuff that's in At Bertram's Hotel. She was—there's a lot of her in Miss—I think, as I say in the book, she grew up with the sound of female wisdom in her ears. You know, her grandmother was the sort of—if she'd seen her up in Harrogate, she would've known exactly what was going on. You know, one of those kind of women who could spot an affair at a hundred paces, just a wise sort of woman, worldly, worldly woman.And Miss Marple is worldly in her thinking, but not in her experience, particularly in a book like A Caribbean Mystery, which I think is—she's a real sophisticate, Agatha. I mean, I'm reading The Hollow again at the moment. And it's really astounding to me how there's a love affair at the center of it with a young woman who's kind of a self-portrait and this married man. And not only, there's not—it's not only nonjudgmental; there's literally no concept of judgment being in the vicinity. It's really, really sophisticated, grown-up stuff, I think. And again, I think that's maybe not recognized about her that much.Nursery RhymesOLIVER: What are the importance of nursery rhymes to her?THOMPSON: Yes, that's interesting. They're part of that distilled quality she had, I suppose, that really simple ability to catch hold of something that is simple and familiar in itself and then subvert it. There's books where she—I don't think she needs it in Five Little Pigs. I think the book is almost too good for that.But is it not to do with that—like her titles, which are really, really simple with a faint frisson of the sinister about them. Is it not that ability she has to catch, to take something really, really simple and subvert it for her own ends? What do you think? Do you think that's right? Or do you think it's something more than that?OLIVER: No, I think the simplicity is the point, and I think it probably gives her a way of talking, of showing how fundamental the wickedness is. And as you say, the children can be evil, and it's part of the darkness in a way, but it gives the appearance of innocence and, oh, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe? You know, children do this. And so it leads you through and makes it worse somehow. [laughs]THOMPSON: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. But I know I've—how many times have I said the word simple? But I really do feel that's the heart of her. And I also feel it's the heart of why she was misunderstood when I was growing up reading her because it was mistaken for simplistic.Wartime ProductivityOLIVER: Why was she so productive during the war? I mean, there were four books one year.THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: And as you say, they're some of the best. I mean, what is it about the war that gets her so busy?THOMPSON: Well, she was on her own, which she had never been, really. Well, obviously she divorced her first husband in 1928. So there's a couple of very bleak, dead years before she met her second husband and married him in 1930. But she wasn't completely on her own because she had her friend Charlotte Fisher, who was a sort of secretary-companion, but much more than that—really, really good friend.But in the war, Max Mallowan was abroad. Her daughter—she had one child—her daughter was married and living in Wales. And she was living in the Isokon building in North London, which I love because that's like, “You think I'm chintzy and old fashioned. And here I am socializing with the sort of left-wing intelligentsia at the Isokon building.” And there's something about being in that adorable little flat—they're so fabulous, those flats—and being alone but not feeling abandoned, as she had after her first marriage.And I suppose also, you know, war is, you either cower in despair or you think, “Right, well, better get on with it.” War is stimulating in that way. I think it was to quite a few writers, maybe, or quite a few creatives. The shadow of death. But there was something about that solitude but not abandonment, plus the stimulation of not knowing whether it was your last day on earth that did—it did. I mean, it's absolutely insane how productive she is.And then she wrote—she had a week off. She was also working as a dispenser at a London hospital, and she had a week off. And she wrote a Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring, which is one of her best Westmacotts, I think. I mean, she's got a week off and she writes a book. I mean, Jesus, there's a challenge to us, Henry. [laughter]The Mary Westmacott NovelsOLIVER: What are those Mary Westmacotts like? Because I've never read them, but you seem very—THOMPSON: Oh, have you not?OLIVER: You're very up on them. You like them?THOMPSON: I am. I really am. Well, for a biographer, they were a treasure trove because they're very revealing. Unfinished Portrait is, I think, as close as you are ever going to come to a true autobiography, as opposed to the actual autobiography, which is charmingly disingenuous.OLIVER: And also dull. No? I mean, it's just so dull.THOMPSON: Do you think? It is a bit.OLIVER: I couldn't read it. I couldn't read it. No, it was so long and so leaden. I felt like she didn't really want to tell me the story of her life. Just couldn't.THOMPSON: Well, I think that's probably right. It was very heavily edited after her death. And her daughter was very, very protective of her. So, Max Mallowan as well. So maybe there was a much better book in there somewhere. Who knows?OLIVER: So we should read Mary Westmacott if we want the unfiltered Agatha?THOMPSON: I would say Unfinished Portrait. It really fascinates me because the worst time you've ever gone through in your life—so in 1926, she lost her mother and her husband in the space of four months. And I think an awful lot of people, even writers, would think, “I'm going to put that behind me and get on.” But she had to reopen the wound. She had to go through it all again eight years later. I find that really, in itself, incredibly revealing about her.Poirot vs. MarpleOLIVER: Why is there so much more Poirot than Marple?THOMPSON: Yes, I've wondered that because there is this little thing that she hated him, which I don't really think she did. It's just something people say, isn't it?OLIVER: Well, it's a common thing about artists. They're supposed to hate their most successful work, but—THOMPSON: Yes. Yes. All I could come up with was that he was easier to put in different places. He could conceivably be on the Nile or in Mesopotamia or—I mean, it would be a—she does manage to get Miss Marple to the West Indies, but it's certainly—OLIVER: There are only so many holidays your nephew can send you on.THOMPSON: He was really successful, that nephew, wasn't he? Who do you think he was like? Sort of Ian McEwan or—OLIVER: [laughs] I know. It was sort of crazy, isn't it?THOMPSON: And very kind to her.OLIVER: It might be to her credit that she doesn't do a Midsomer Murders thing and just sort of wave away and say, “Oh, we can just have as many of these murders as we want.” She says, “No, we can only fit—” Do you think maybe that's it?THOMPSON: I think there might be a bit of that. I mean, her notebooks sort of—some of the books were originally Marples, like Cat Among the Pigeons and Death on the Nile, in fact. And then they became Poirots. I just wonder whether he's a bit more malleable because she is a more rooted, fixed entity.And he is—I don't mean to denigrate David Suchet because he's a fantastic actor, but he does root him more than I think the written version. I think he is a sketch on the page. And one of her great skills, I think, is how she can sketch, and they've got that quality of aliveness on the page, which you just can't analyze, really. I don't—well, I can't. And that's how I see Poirot. So he was more movable in that sense.And she's incredibly good at certain—like Sleeping Murder, there's no way you could have him in that. And Miss Marple is—her qualities are so perfect for a book like that, which has suddenly reminded me of how she got me into John Webster. I never read John Webster until—OLIVER: [laughs] That's great.THOMPSON: The way she uses The Duchess of Malfi is so clever. Do you think that's right about Poirot? Do you think there's something more . . .Reader Preferences and SalesOLIVER: I can see that. I wondered if there was some reader's prejudice involved.THOMPSON: Oh.OLIVER: Poirot is the sort of exotic—Sherlock Holmes, one thing that makes him popular is that he's a bit wacky, you know. And Poirot—he's always talking about, “You English are so xenophobic. Excuse me, I am Belgian.” And with the eggs and all the little—whereas Miss Marple's just the kind of old lady that we all wish there were more of. And how much of that will readers take? I don't know.THOMPSON: Yes. Although, as I say, she, she did—I mean, I think her publishers did like her to do Poirot, but I don't know that she would've been influenced by that necessarily. I mean, maybe she was—maybe I'm overdoing her—OLIVER: Well, she had these terrible money problems. Didn't she have to be a little bit focused on the dollar?THOMPSON: She did. She did, but she didn't—well, I mean, the money problems are insane because they were absolutely no fault of her own. They were to do with test cases, and it was just this sort of accumulation of horror that put her in tax problems during the war. And she really never could dig her way out of them and was advised to go bankrupt twice, which is unbelievable, just as a way of clearing it. I mean, it's terrible.But I don't know that she—I think her attitude was a bit more, “Well, why should I even bother if they're just going to take it away from me?” In 1948 she didn't write anything at all because I think she thought, “What's the point?” But then, that wasn't her way. But I don't know that she thought of writing as a way of digging out of it necessarily. But I could be—OLIVER: The Marples, did they make less money? Were they, did they sell less?THOMPSON: Not really. I think they all sold. Even poor old Passenger to Frankfurt sold hugely, absolutely hugely. I think people—I mean, my parents would—it was like people just wanted them, the Christie for Christmas.Rereading ChristieOLIVER: How many times have you read these books? Do you ever get bored?THOMPSON: No.OLIVER: Really?THOMPSON: Well, I have them on rotation, and I don't—as you know, I do interleave them with our beloved Elizabeth Bowen, who's my passion at the moment, and other people. But they are consolatory, I suppose. They are—there's bits of—there is this kind of—there's bits of them that I just know completely off by heart, like the gramophone record in And Then There Were None and all that.But there's something—and maybe I should have said this earlier, when I say—I've said it on Substack—that they're fairy tales for adults. There's something about that. There's an almost physical sensation of pleasure, really, when the resolution comes. It is a bit like act five of Shakespeare. I'm not going to say she's quite on that level. Not even I am going to say that.But there is—and it is like being a child again and reading the end toward the happy-ever-after, even though her happy-ever-afters are sometimes compromised. And there is something almost primal in that pleasure. And it almost sounds borderline mad, me saying it like that, but I do think there's something in it because the resolution is so—because it's character based, and at her best, she's character and plot as one, as in Five Little Pigs or The Hollow or Murder on the Orient Express or blah, blah, blah.Her resolutions do tell you something about human nature. You do think, “Oh, yes, that is what that would be. Yes, it would be all about money. Yes. Yes, doctors are untrustworthy,” or something on a more profound level than that. There's something that is a satisfaction, both childlike and I'm experiencing it as an adult. In my defense, P. G. Wodehouse said you can never read them too many times. [laughs] It doesn't matter if you know who did it. There's so much pleasure in them.Thompson's CareerOLIVER: Now, I want to ask a little bit about your career.THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.OLIVER: You were at a sort of stage school, then you studied at Merton, and then you worked at The Times.THOMPSON: Yes. Very briefly. Yes.OLIVER: How does one therefore go from all of this to being the biographer?THOMPSON: Well, I did always think I would have a career in—I wanted to direct plays. I directed Hamlet after university, which is probably the thing I'm still proudest of. But what it was, was that I wrote a couple of books. I won an award when I was quite young.And then I had an agent who—I said to him, “I want to write a biography of Nancy Mitford.” And he wasn't very keen on the idea, but I must have written an okay proposal. Again, because I thought Nancy Mitford was a little bit undervalued, that she's a lot more than just a posh girl. And at the time her reputation was quite low. And so somebody bought into that idea, and it sort of went from there, really.But it's a bit—I sometimes look back at the books I've written, including a memoir of my publican grandmother, and I think, gosh, this is all quite scatter-gun, but maybe that's okay. Maybe you should just write the books you really want to write. But it was a passion for Nancy Mitford that sort of started that particular ball rolling.And then I had the idea of—oh, no. I was down in Devon with a boyfriend, and he said, “You never stop talking about Agatha Christie. Why don't you try and write her biography?” And that was just a luck of timing because her daughter was still alive. So I met her, and she liked me because I knew the Mary Westmacotts so well, and that sort of happened. I mean, quite often these things are very fortuitous, don't you think? Did you not find that with your book?OLIVER: Yes, yes. No, I did. I did. I think some writers, as you say—I don't think of it as scatter-gun. I think of it, it's sort of an emergent thing, and you happen to have these different interests, and you just follow your nose, and that's fine.THOMPSON: Yes, exactly.OLIVER: Tell us about this production of Hamlet.THOMPSON: Oh. Do you know, I think it was not bad. I had a very good Hamlet. I think if you've—well, you're in trouble without—who is now quite a successful actor. And we were all really young, but he was—I saw him in something and said, “Do you want to play Hamlet for me?” And he said, “Okay then.” And it was a room above a pub in Chelsea, and it was very spare and very quick.And it was about—I can't bear when people overanalyze the character of Hamlet, and why does he delay? He delays because Shakespeare wants him to, so that he can write all those incredible speeches. That's a bit simplified, but it was—he was so, he so understood the translucent power of those soliloquies, this actor. So it just sort of worked because we didn't do too much to it. And it was, yes, it was good. I think it was good. But then I did Macbeth, and that was much less good.Secretly Reading ChristieOLIVER: And you've said here, and I think you said it in your book, that when you were at Merton, you were reading Agatha Christie between the covers of what you were supposed to be reading.THOMPSON: Yes, yes, I was.OLIVER: That can't be—is that a slight exaggeration, or did you really not get on with the syllabus?THOMPSON: Well, hang on. I was a bit stuck in the first term. Can you imagine coming from a performing arts school—OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: —and then being told, “Read that bloody, you know.OLIVER: Yes, yes. No, it's intense.THOMPSON: All I knew was French. How I got in is a minor mystery, but there it was. I've tried to do it honor ever since by writing as best books I possibly can. But I was okay once I got over that bit. Once I got into my beloved Tennyson and all the people we've been talking about, Hardy and blah, blah, blah. Larkin, about whom the best thing I've ever read—the best thing I've ever read about Larkin is your Substack about him, without a shadow of a doubt.OLIVER: Oh, thank you.THOMPSON: Just wonderful. So I sort of winged it a bit, but I had a very nice don. And the autodidact side of me, which is very like Agatha Christie, who barely went to school, and Nancy Mitford—I think it can be a good thing in a way, because you have such a respect for learning and truth. I always try to be truthful in my biographies, which as we know, not everybody is. [laughter]And I think you carry on wanting to learn and carry on wanting to fill all the gaps because I only had half an education, because in the morning you would do ballet and drama and all that kind of thing. So it is a bit odd, but in some ways I think it's been a good thing.OLIVER: Now, the new book is about the 1926 disappearance. When can we expect it to be published?THOMPSON: It's only a short book—OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: —because obviously I covered it a lot in the biography, and it doesn't—but I have found out a couple of new things. And that will be out in August here and in November in America. And I have come up with a slightly different slant on it, but mainly—and I treat it a little bit like a cold case. And it was—I had to write—I wrote it in five weeks, but it was incredibly good fun. Oh, and I reenacted her journey, which was very interesting, to Harrogate.But mainly it's such a pleasure because I, you know, on Substack, and I think, “Oh, you can't write about Agatha Christie again.” There always seems to be quite a lot to say. I'm intrigued by how you, who I think of as a true intellectual, how you have clear regard for her.Henry on Agatha ChristieOLIVER: I started reading her when I was about 12, and I just thought she was great, and I went through most of them. But I read them at intervals. So I was reading her into my twenties, thirties. And before this interview I tried to—I thought, “Laura's always saying Five Little Pigs is the best one. I'm going to read it.” And I just sort of found that I've lost the taste, in a way.THOMPSON: Okay.OLIVER: Which I was quite, I don't know, just maybe—I feel like this is my failing. Maybe I should take a week off and sit by the pool and read it properly. But I've always thought she's really, really great, and very few people can do that many very compelling stories without you sort of thinking, “Oh, I've read this one. I know. Yes. It's the same as the other one, isn't it? Yes. Yes, it was the”—as you say, it's not Cluedo. Even Dorothy L. Sayers, I don't think I could read much more by her, frankly. Great, she's great, but it's enough. [laughs]THOMPSON: Well, I quite like her. The whole—most girls who went to Oxford are quite keen on Gaudy Night, and the character of Harriet Vane is quite satisfying, I think.OLIVER: Indeed, indeed. And Strong Poison is great. And there—but I just mean if she'd written as many books as Agatha, you can't imagine it would've sustained the level of quality.THOMPSON: No, no. There is that lightness in Agatha and that terrible cliché of, “I wrote a long book because it was too—I didn't have enough time to write a short book,” and all that kind of thing. The brevity amazes me. When I said at the start, most writers would take twice as many pages to get all that in.She has style—I don't know if you can call it a style, but there is something blindingly effective about it that nobody can imitate. And it does—there's something so fathomless about her, and that's what continues to compel me. But I think it's very lovely of you to do this if you are no longer an admirer because you've let me sort of—OLIVER: Well, it's not that I'm not an admirer. It's just that I don't—I had this with P. G. Wodehouse. I read quite a lot of it, and now, I don't know, somehow I've reached a point where it's—I sort of get it, but it's just not that funny anymore. I don't know, just need some time away.THOMPSON: Well, maybe. Maybe, but you know, I'm a bit—she's part of my life now. It's like if somebody said, “You can't read her anymore,” it would be like, “You can't listen to the Rolling Stones anymore.” I mean, it'd be like a kind of death. She's part of my life the same way they're part of my life. She's now inseparable from just the way I go on, as is Shakespeare. And if I had to lose one of them, trust me, it would be her, you'll be reassured to know. [laughter]OLIVER: Very good. Laura, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you very much.THOMPSON: Oh, I've really enjoyed it. I really have. And I was really looking forward to it, and it's been even nicer than I thought it would be. So thank you.OLIVER: Oh, it's been delightful.THOMPSON: Thank you so much, Henry.OLIVER: Thank you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

What other monsters can we mash up with Agatha Christie? Dracula on the Nile? Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Marple? Five Little Invisible Men?!

On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Meredith are discussing: Bookish Moments: A new bookish metaphor and book moms in the wild Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately Deep Dive: Explaining a Currently Reading literary society Before We Go: our new segment featuring bookish friend posts and a sleeper hit you should read. Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site). . . . 1:44 - Bookish Moments of the Week 1:52 - Currently Reading Website 1:56 - Books We Want To Press Into Your Hands 3:03 - Best Books for Babies and Kids 3:42 - Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge 5:55 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO Max 7:12 - Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 7:16 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R. R. Martin (all 3 Dunk and Egg novellas) 7:55 - Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid 8:33 - Current Reads 8:41 - The Secret Library by Kekla Magoon (Kaytee) 11:47 - The Book Wanderers by Anna James 11:50 - The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 11:54 - The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 13:08 - Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Meredith) 15:10 - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 15:11 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 15:45 - Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 22:27 - Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 24:10 - Six Feet Over by Mary Roach (Kaytee) 27:20 - Gulp by Mary Roach 27:21 - Bonk by Mary Roach 27:22 - Stiff by Mary Roach 28:51 - Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (Meredith) 32:06 - Agatha Christie's Marple by Mark Aldridge 34:18 - The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden (Kaytee) 34:33 - Charter Books 39:00 - Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Meredith) 42:28 - Dracula by Bram Stoker 45:21 - Turning Instagram into Bookstagram 47:25 - Sign up for the newsletter on our website 47:26 - Currently Reading Substack 50:48 - Currently Reading Instagram 50:54 - @HelloSunshine on Instagram 50:58 - @BookRiot on Instagram  51:00 - @NYTBooks on Instagram 51:40 - @Iamblackharry on Instagram 52:10 - Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 52:28 - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 52:42 - The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower 53:42 - The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides 53:48 - God of the Woods by Liz Moore 54:03 - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 56:13 - Sarah's Bookshelves Live 58:44 - Before We Go Meredith highlights a bookish friend post 59:34 - The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver 59:54 - The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Kaytee's Book She DNF'd: 1:01:22 - The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor 1:01:28 - Bookshelf Thomasville 1:02:57 - From the Front Porch podcast Support Us: Become a Bookish Friend | Grab Some Merch Shop Bookshop dot org | Shop Amazon Bookish Friends Receive: The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. February's list is a special romance curated list from Open Door Romance, The Novel Neighbor's Romance adjacent bookstore in Plainville, MA. Love and Chili Peppers with Kaytee and Rebekah - romance lovers get their due with this special episode focused entirely on the best selling genre fiction in the business All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the behind-the-scenes insights of an independent bookseller From the Editor's Desk with Kaytee and Bunmi Ishola - a quarterly peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry The Bookish Friends Facebook Group - where you can build community with bookish friends from around the globe as well as our hosts Connect With Us: The Show: Instagram | Website | Email | Threads | Substack | Youtube The Hosts and Regulars: Meredith | Kaytee | Mary | Roxanna Production and Editing: Megan Phouthavong Evans Affiliate Disclosure: All affiliate links go to Bookshop unless otherwise noted. Shopping here helps keep the lights on and benefits indie bookstores. Thanks for your support!

BE WARNED: It's LuAnna, and this podcast contains honest, upfront opinions, rants, bants and general explicit content. But you know you love it.On this week's LuAnna: Becs gets her first bit of hate, Anna's being a fart-hypocrite in Tenerife, Lu's being "Miss Markle" (read Marple) in Dubai, there's a phallic icecream, a story about giving a blowie to Darth Vader and we talk about if politics is worth losing a friend over.Plus, we deep dive into the case of Lucy Letby after the Netflix documentary recently came out, we crown our next weirdo of the week, Imo has a small pop at the listeners andGRAB YOUR TICKETS FOR THE BIG PARTY AT EVERYTHINGLUANNA.COMRemember, if you want to get in touch you can: Email us at luanna@everythingluanna.com OR drop us a WhatsApp on our brand new number 075 215 64640Please review Global's Privacy Policy: https://global.com/legal/privacy-policy/

Première épisode de la cinquième saison ! Ce mois-ci nous avons lu la novella Trois Souris, une lecture rapide pour commencer l'année en douceur !Un meurtre vient d'être commis, en plein jour à Londres. Des témoins ont aperçu un homme louche à proximité des lieux du crime. Il a laissé tombé un carnet dans lequel la police retrouve l'indication “Monkswell Manor”.À Monkswell Manor justement, Molly et Gilles Davis, un couple de jeunes mariés, a décidé de transformer la demeure dont Molly vient d'hériter en pension de famille. Les jeunes gens s'apprêtent à accueillir leurs premiers hôtes, alors qu'une tempête de neige va bientôt éclater.Un grand merci à Freddy qui nous a accompagné dans cet épisode.Vous pouvez le retrouver sur BlueSky et dans son podcast Arrête tes Causeries !Toutes nos informations sur le linktree d'Agatha Chrimstie Agatha Crimstie est un podcast du label Podcut. N'hésitez pas à venir papoter sur le Discord du Label Participez à la vie du label en donnant sur Patreon  Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

This week on the Quick Book Reviews Podcast, I'm joined by Frankie from The Labours of Hercule podcast (and the Read & Buried Podcast) to mark 50 years since the death of Agatha Christie.We talk all things Christie — from her most iconic novels to her extraordinary influence on crime fiction — and, of course, tackle the big question: who is best, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple?Frankie shares her favourite Agatha Christie books, plus we discuss what makes her mysteries so enduring and why her stories continue to be read, adapted, and loved decades after they were written.Whether you're a lifelong Christie fan or discovering her work for the first time, this episode is a celebration of the Queen of Crime and her unforgettable detectives.Topics include Agatha Christie novels, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, classic crime fiction, and literary legacy.Follow Quick Book Reviews for book recommendations, author interviews, and weekly podcast episodes.

In our season finale, Will talks himself out of a job, Hugh is obviously a teacher, Michael disparages the muscled men of the past, and Áine is impressed by the clarity of the smut peopleLong-time listener or new to Legitimate Likes? We want to hear from you! Help shape our podcast by taking a quick, anonymous 10–15 min survey. Start now: http://bit.ly/legitimatelikes-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The public domain comes for us all and today it's come for Miss Marple, the elderly busybody and amateur sleuth that Agatha Christie created in the 1920s. In her first proper novel, Marple assists a vicar in uncovering the truth behind a murder that occurred in his own home (also known as a vicarage). How does Marple do it? With a keen understanding of Human Nature.This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/overdue.Head to MarleySpoon.com/offer/overdue for 45% off your first order and free delivery!Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this edition of The Invasion Of Trendezuela, Jack and Miles discuss their respective holidays, the last couple of weeks of Trump's antics and war crimes, RIP to MTV, Drake getting sued for being Drake asl, new public domain characters just dropped (feat. Betty Boop, Sam Spade, Nancy Drew, & Ms. Marple) and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Es wird Hochzeit gefeiert, in der englischen Oberschicht. Die Fassade muss um jeden Preis gewahrt werden – eine Tote stört da eher. Noch dazu wenn, sie vor aller Augen zusammenbricht! Doch Miss Marple und ihre ermittelnde Freundin Bella Baptiste lassen nicht locker ... (00:00) Beginn Episode (03:08) Beginn Lesung (75:27) Gespräch ____________________ Von: Dreda Say Mitchell ____________________ Mit: Janna Horstmann – Komposition: Emanuel Steffen – Übersetzung: Alexander Weber – Tontechnik: Tom Willen – Szenische Einrichtung: Susanne Janson ____________________ Produktion: SRF 2025 ____________________ Die ersten neuen Fall für Miss Marple könnt Ihr hier nachhören: https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-1-das-boese-in-kleinen-ortschaften?id=AUDI20251211_NR_0004 Den zweiten hier: https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-2-die-jadekaiserin?id=AUDI20251218_NR_0005 Und hier den dritten: https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-3-miss-marples-weihnachten?id=AUDI20251225_NR_0009 ____________________ Aus «Miss Marple: Zwölf neue Kriminalgeschichten», erschienen im Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, © 2022 Agatha Christie Limited. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. AGATHA CHRISTIE und MARPLE sind eingetragene Marken von Agatha Christie Limited im Vereinigten Königreich und darüberhinaus. Publiziert mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Agatha Christie Limited.

Neue Fälle für Miss Marple. Agatha Christies legendäre Detektivin kehrt zurück – mit brandneuen Geschichten, geschrieben von renommierten Autorinnen. Die britische Krimiautorin Ruth Ware lässt ihre Geschichte ganz traditionell in St. Mary Mead spielen - dem Dörfchen, in dem Miss Marple lebt. Die ist an Weihnachten zu Nachbarn eingeladen. Was gibt es Schöneres als auf eine dicke Schneeschicht im englischen Garten zu schauen, während man selbst unter Mistelzweigen am Kaminfeuer sitzt und sich auf Roastbeef und Plumpudding freut? Wären da nicht diese lauten Dashwoods, die ebenfalls zu den Gästen zählen. Und das Unglück, das über die Weihnachtsgesellschaft hereinbricht.... Diese Lesung hören Sie im «Krimi»-Podcast. Den Link zum Audio finden Sie unten bei «Mehr zum Thema». In Ruth Wares Geschichte gibt es für alle Miss Marple-Kenner ein Wiederhören mit alten Bekannten: So ist Miss Marples heiss geliebter Neffe Raymond mit von der Partie, zusammen mit seiner Frau Joan. Auch der Scotland Yard-Beamte Sir Henri Clithering taucht in Agatha Christies Marple-Geschichten immer wieder auf. Und die Bantrys, die Gastgeber, kennen eingefleischte Miss Marple-Fans natürlich auch noch aus dem Dienstagabend-Club, der in den allerersten Marple-Geschichten gemeinsam schwierige Rätsel knackte. «There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.» Mit diesem Satz schuf Agatha Christie eine Figur, die bis heute fasziniert: Miss Marple. Die schüchterne, blitzgescheite Jungfer aus dem fiktiven Dörfchen St. Mary Mead ist keine Detektivin der spektakulären Methoden. Stattdessen setzt sie auf stille Beobachtung ihrer Umgebung, profunde botanische Kenntnisse und ein grundsätzliches Misstrauen gegenüber der menschlichen Natur. Und löst so jeden Fall präzise, unspektakulär und doch verblüffend treffsicher. 1927 trat sie erstmals in einer Kurzgeschichte auf, später folgten zwölf Romane und zahlreiche weitere Geschichten. 1979 erschien der letzte Band – Miss Marple überlebte ihre Schöpferin damit um drei Jahre. Nun erlebt die berühmteste Hobbydetektivin eine Renaissance: Zwölf zeitgenössische Krimiautorinnen aus England und den USA haben neue Geschichten geschrieben – ganz im Geiste Agatha Christies und oftmals mit vielen Verweisen auf den «Miss Marple-Kosmos». Aber auch mit Themen, die in den Krimis der grossen Autorin weniger zum Tragen kamen: Rassismus im Commonwealth, sozialer Snobismus oder die gesellschaftlichen Umbrüche in den 1960er Jahren. SRF hat vier ausgewählte Geschichten als Lesungen mit Musik produziert. Aus «Miss Marple: Zwölf neue Kriminalgeschichten», erschienen im Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, © 2022 Agatha Christie Limited. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. AGATHA CHRISTIE und MARPLE sind eingetragene Marken von Agatha Christie Limited im Vereinigten Königreich und darüber hinaus. Publiziert mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Agatha Christie Limited. __________ aus dem Englischen von Alexander Weber gelesen von Nikola Weisse Komposition: Lukas Fretz Tontechnik: Tom Willen Einrichtung: Susanne Janson Produktion: SRF 2025 Dauer: 78' Hier geht es zu allen Lesungen "Neue Fälle für Miss Marple" https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-1-das-boese-in-kleinen-ortschaften?id=AUDI20251211_NR_0004 https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-2-die-jadekaiserin?id=AUDI20251218_NR_0005 https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-3-miss-marples-weihnachten?id=AUDI20251225_NR_0009 https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-4-eine-toedliche-hochzeit?id=AUDI20260101_NR_0003

Die feine Stube festlich geschmückt, der Lendenbraten im Ofen, und die Festgesellschaft eingeschneit. Was fehlt noch zum weihnachtlichen Krimi-Vergnügen? Ein Verbrechen! Da wird eine sündhafteure Halskette gestohlen. Ein Fall für Miss Marple! Festlicher Hörspielspass nach Agatha Christie. (00:00) Beginn Episode (02:12) Beginn Lesung (79:46) Gespräch ____________________ Von: Ruth Ware ____________________ Mit: Nikola Weisse – Komposition: Lukas Fretz – Übersetzung: Alexander Weber – Tontechnik: Tom Willen – Szenische Einrichtung: Susanne Janson ____________________ Produktion: SRF 2025 ____________________ Die ersten neuen Fall für Miss Marple könnt Ihr hier nachhören: https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-1-das-boese-in-kleinen-ortschaften?id=AUDI20251211_NR_0004 Und den zweiten hier: https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-2-die-jadekaiserin?id=AUDI20251218_NR_0005 ____________________ Aus «Miss Marple: Zwölf neue Kriminalgeschichten», erschienen im Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, © 2022 Agatha Christie Limited. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. AGATHA CHRISTIE und MARPLE sind eingetragene Marken von Agatha Christie Limited im Vereinigten Königreich und darüberhinaus. Publiziert mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Agatha Christie Limited.

La Maison Biscornue est un roman qui laisse de côté les enquêteurs chouchous de Christie pour laisser la place à un amateur.La Seconde Guerre mondiale touche à sa fin. Charles Hayward se trouve au Caire et tombe amoureux de Sophia Leonides, une Anglaise intelligente et brillante qui travaille pour le ministère des Affaires étrangères. Sophia a fini sa mission et doit rentrer chez elle. Ils décident d'attendre de se retrouver en Angleterre quelques mois plus tard pour se fiancer.Deux ans après cette promesse, Hayward rentre chez lui et lit un avis de décès dans le Times : le grand-père de Sophia, le riche entrepreneur Aristide Leonides, est décédé à l'âge de 87 ans. Toute la famille vivait avec lui dans une maison somptueuse mais mal proportionnée appelée « Three Gables », maison que Sophia décrit comme “biscornue à plus d'un sens” à Charles. L'autopsie révèle que Leonides a été empoisonné avec son propre collyre à base d'ésérine via une injection d'insuline. Sophia annonce à Charles qu'elle ne peut pas l'épouser tant que l'affaire n'est pas élucidée, et il n'en faudra pas plus au jeune homme pour décider de participer à l'enquête.Nos invités du mois sont Gravlax et Niko. Vous pourrez retrouver Gravlax dans Dans le doute, Reboot !, et sur BlueSkyNiko dans L'Entrepod, sur BlueSky et sur InstagramPendant l'épisode, Gravlax nous présente le travail de Intercripole qui cherche le vrai coupable du meurtre de Leonides. Si ça vous intéresse, vous pourrez lire l'article ici : A Crooked Solution ? Contre-enquête sur La Maison biscornue d'Agatha ChristieToutes nos informations sur le linktree d'Agatha Chrimstie Agatha Crimstie est un podcast du label Podcut. N'hésitez pas à venir papoter sur le Discord du Label Participez à la vie du label en donnant sur Patreon  Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Mord im Ostasien-Express! Miss Marple reist nach Hongkong: an Bord des Dampfers «Die Jadekaiserin». Sie freundet sich mit einem älteren chinesischen Herren an. Bald wird er ermordert – und er wird nicht der einzige bleiben. Miss Marples Neugier für andere Kulturen ist gefragt ... (00:00) Beginn Episode (05:12) Beginn Lesung (69:30) Gespräch ____________________ Von: Jean Kwok ____________________ Mit: Patrick Güldenberg – Komposition: Yang Jing – Übersetzung: Alexander Weber – Tontechnik: Tom Willen – Szenische Einrichtung: Susanne Janson ____________________ Produktion: SRF 2025 ____________________ Den ersten neuen Fall für Miss Marple könnt Ihr hier nachhören: https://www.srf.ch/audio/krimi/neue-faelle-fuer-miss-marple-1-das-boese-in-kleinen-ortschaften?id=AUDI20251211_NR_0004 Hier gehts zum Bericht über Kowloon-City: https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/101463-007-A/crazy-borders/ Und hier eine Rezension von "Das Auge von Hongkong": https://www.krimi-couch.de/titel/17108-das-auge-von-hongkong/ ____________________ Aus «Miss Marple: Zwölf neue Kriminalgeschichten», erschienen im Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, © 2022 Agatha Christie Limited. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. AGATHA CHRISTIE und MARPLE sind eingetragene Marken von Agatha Christie Limited im Vereinigten Königreich und darüberhinaus. Publiziert mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Agatha Christie Limited.

Die berühmteste Detektivin der Welt ist zurück! Dank zeitgenössischen Bestseller-Autorinnen, die in der Tradition von Agatha Christie schreiben: voller britischem Charme, aber auch mit cleveren Modernisierungen. Der erste Fall seziert die Unterschiede zwischen Hausherren und Bediensteten ... (00:00) Beginn Episode (03:00) Beginn Lesung (76:00) Gespräch ____________________ Von: Lucy Foley ____________________ Mit: Ilknur Bahadir – Komposition: Fatima Dunn – Übersetzung: Alexander Weber – Tontechnik: Tom Willen – Szenische Einrichtung: Susanne Janson ____________________ Produktion: SRF 2025 ____________________ Aus «Miss Marple: Zwölf neue Kriminalgeschichten», erschienen im Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, © 2022 Agatha Christie Limited. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. AGATHA CHRISTIE und MARPLE sind eingetragene Marken von Agatha Christie Limited im Vereinigten Königreich und darüberhinaus. Publiziert mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Agatha Christie Limited.

Dans le Flux et le Reflux Christie place Poirot dans un contexte de fin de guerre.Automne 1944, Hercule Poirot est à son club à Londres, entre deux attaques aériennes. Il est quasiment le seul à prêter une oreille presque attentive à l'ennuyeux major Porter.  Ce dernier parle du richissime Gordon Cloade qui vient de revenir de New York où il a épousé Rosaleen, une jeune veuve. A peine rentré chez lui, Cloade est mort sous les bombes, dans l'explosion de sa maison, sa toute jeune femme étant la seule survivante. Pour ajouter un peu de piment à son histoire, le major précise une chose : il était proche du premier mari de Rosaleen et celui-ci lui aurait confié peu de temps avant son décès qu'il pourrait du jour au lendemain disparaitre et se faire passer pour mort pour laisser sa femme refaire sa vie et être heureuse.Printemps 1946 : Hercule Poirot qui a oublié toute cette histoire reçoit la visite de la fantasque Mrs Lionel Cloade qui lui annonce que les esprits lui ont demandé de venir le voir pour lui annoncer que le premier mari de Rosaleen Cloade était encore en vie.Quelques jours plus tard, il lit dans le journal un entrefilet annonçant la mort d'un certain Enoch Arden dans le village même d'où venait cette mystérieuse Mrs Cloade. Il n'en faut pas plus pour activer les cellules grises du célèbre détective !Nous sommes ce mois-ci accompagnés par Gaewen, la voix féminine de Pod, Monstres, Trésors. Toutes nos informations sur le linktree d'Agatha Chrimstie Agatha Crimstie est un podcast du label Podcut. N'hésitez pas à venir papoter sur le Discord du Label Participez à la vie du label en donnant sur Patreon  Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Nous parlons dans cet épisode du premier recueil de nouvelle de Christie après la Seconde Guerre mondiale : Les Travaux d'Hercule.Hercule Poirot va bientôt prendre sa retraite et il s'ennuie. Un soir, il reçoit un éminent professeur de littérature grecque et latine à Oxford. Ce dernier s'amuse de la différence entre notre ami détective et le héros grec dont il tient son prénom. Poirot révèle alors à son invité, presque choqué, qu'il n'a jamais lu l'Odyssée.Aidé de son efficace secrétaire, Miss Lemon, qui lui résume l'oeuvre et rassemble des informations sur le sujet, il se prend au jeu et décide de résoudre douze dernières enquêtes avant sa retraite, enquêtes qu'il choisira à son rythme et parce qu'elles correspondent à l'un des travaux d'Hercule.Nous avons été accompagnés pendant l'enregistrement par Laïd Seghir, que vous pouvez retrouver sur son blog, Le Sanctuaire de Prométhée ou sur ses comptes X et BlueSkyToutes nos informations sur le linktree d'Agatha Chrimstie Agatha Crimstie est un podcast du label Podcut. N'hésitez pas à venir papoter sur le Discord du Label Participez à la vie du label en donnant sur Patreon  Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Teresa Peschel, author of "Agatha Christie, She Watched" and the "International Agatha Christie, She Watched," discuss "The Secret of Chimneys," the 2010 episode of "Agatha Christie's Marple" starring Julia McKenzie.Joining Teresa is her husband, technical adviser, and straight man, Bill Peschel. Together, they are Peschel Press, publisher of intriguing, intelligent, and idiosyncratic books.

New episode out now! We revisit the work of Agatha Christie with the 2022 BritBox miniseries Why Didn't They Ask Evans? starring Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton and adapted by Hugh Laurie. We get into how the relationship of Bobby and Frankie evolves throughout the story, have difficulties figuring out the timeline, think both doctors make better investigators than the young couple, and dig into the nature of evil and the way the villain of the story shifts plans based on the opportunities presented. We discuss the influence of English classicism and how it affected the investigative style, talk a little about the Marple adaptation of this same story, think this is really a romance wrapped in a mystery, and speak at length about the attractiveness of Will Poulter. Katy loves the ‘90s, Carrie likes a helpful kind man (who's also hot), Maddy locks in for cats, and Mack has a pretty okay Palpatine impression. We also muse on how non-traditional mystery solvers always seem to have an unending supply of family members to visit, reveal various childhood (and adulthood) cartoon crushes, learn things about the full moon, and uncover a trope of character design that is pretty wild. Listen to hear more about IMDb credits, miming a telephone, Brennan Lee Mulligan, wedding pants, horror tropes, and the hotness of forearms. Go ride a bike!TW: Suicide, mental health issues, electroshock therapy, opioid addiction

Hello Model Clubbers! While visiting Louisville I was invited to take a tour of the collection of Tim Marple. Tim belonged to the original model club that started Wonderfest and was there at the very beginning. It was truly and honor to meet Tim and I hope you enjoy the pictures I brought back with me. Thank you once again Joe Heil for two more amazing giveaways this episode! As for the rest of the episode, some news and reviews and the usual hijinks. Links for the show - Goblins Hut / Dirty Down https://www.goblinshut.com/ promo code MCTV Sunguar's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@sunguar Uel Winner - https://bit.ly/3Zsf8eE NY3D Creations - https://ny3dcreations.com/ Nostalgic Resin Productions - https://bit.ly/47waUo1 Bulkamancer - https://www.patreon.com/c/bulkamancer/posts Wicked - https://www.patreon.com/3dWicked Famous Monsters - https://famousmonsters.com/   email - modelclubtv@gmail.com voicemail - 708-816-4299 discord - https://discord.gg/tmFNMJkKej

Our favorite curious sleuth is back to ponder goop and gently guide you to dreamland like a newspaper boat floating on a man-made canal.Start a 7 day FREE trial of Sleep With Me Plus- The ultimate way to listen to show, based on how YOU listen! Get your Sleep With Me SleepPhones. Use "sleepwithme" for $5 off!!Are you looking for Story Only versions or two more nights of Sleep With Me a week? Then check out Bedtime Stories from Sleep With MeLearn more about producer Russell aka Rusty Biscuit at russellsperberg.com and @BabyTeethLA on IG.Show Artwork by Emily TatGoing through a hard time? You can find support at the Crisis Textline and see more global helplines here.HELIX SLEEP - Take the 2-minute sleep quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress that'll give you the best sleep of your life. Visit helixsleep.com/sleep and get a special deal exclusive for SWM listeners!ZOCDOC - With Zocdoc, you can search for local doctors who take your insurance, read verified patient reviews and book an appointment, in-person or video chat. Download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE at zocdoc.com/sleep PROGRESSIVE - With the Name Your Price tool, you tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at progressive.comQUINCE - Quince sells luxurious, ethically-made clothes and bedding at an affordable price. Transition your bed for the season with soft, breathable bedding from Quince. Go to Quince.com/sleep to get free shipping and 365-day returns on your next order. ODOO - Odoo is an all-in-one management platform with a suite of user-friendly applications designed to simplify and connect every aspect of your company in one, easy-to-use software. Odoo is the affordable, all-in-one management software with a library of fully-integrated business applications that help you get MORE done in LESS time for a FRACTION of the price.To learn more, visit www.odoo.com/withme Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Welcome Keyser, West Virginia native Donnie Marple! Donnie is best known as the full-time drummer for American country music singer and songwriter Lee Brice. He's also the 2007 Champion of the storied Guitar Center Drum-Off.Starting from his early love for drumming inspired by his musical family and church, Donnie describes his rise through the competitive ranks, from local area competitions to competing nationally in the Guitar Center Drum-Off and eventually performing a solo at the prestigious Buddy Rich Memorial Concert - where he would share the stage with legends like Neil Peart and Chad Smith. Donnie discusses the evolution of his career with Lee Brice, his continual efforts to improve, and his experience balancing fatherhood with a demanding touring schedule. He also reflects on his passion for golf and reading, and offers insights into overcoming overthinking and focusing on mental health. The episode wraps as Donnie emphasizes the importance of humility, gratitude, and balancing professional success with personal fulfillment. We hope you enjoy!Chapters:0:00 Intro2:08 Welcome, Donnie! 3:42 Lee Brice Audition 18:50 Mental Health and Overcoming Challenges 28:53 Golf and Drumming: Finding Balance 31:55 Learning from Other Drummers 37:14 Drum Box (Sponsor) 37:57 Early Beginnings 43:36 Guitar Center Drum-Off 57:19 Low Boy Beaters (Sponsor) 58:38 Buddy Rich Memorial Concert 1:07:10 Reflecting & Inspiring the Next Generation 1:10:35 Drum Supply (Sponsor) 1:18:08 Gear Talk and Endorsements 1:24:31 Sonique Drums (Sponsor) 1:28:43 Balancing Family and Career 1:30:50 OutroThank you to our Episode Sponsors:Drum Boxhttps://drumbox.spaceDrum Supplyhttps://www.drumsupply.comLow Boy Beatershttps://lowboybeaters.comGroove MPLhttps://www.groovempl.comSonique Drumshttps://soniquedrums.comConnect with Donnie:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donnie_marpleYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/donniemarpleWebsite: https://donniemarple.comMusic Featured in this Episode:"Soul" - Lee Brice"Rumor" - Lee BriceSupport the showConnect with us:WebsiteInstagramTikTokYouTubeFacebookRecorded at Garden Groove Recording Space, Nashville, TNPodcast Artwork: GENUINE CREATIVE ART ⓒ 2025 Nashville Drummers Podcast, LLC

From a small town in West Virginia to a national stage in Hollywood, drummer Donnie Marple has lived one incredible journey. In this special drop of Sippin' On Country, Donnie shares the story of how he went from winning the country's biggest drum competition to touring professionally and chasing the music dream all the way to Nashville.We talk about his early days, that wild experience on stage in L.A., and what led him to choose Music City over New York. Plus, Donnie opens up about his unexpected passion for golf and his full-blown man crush on Morgan Wallen's guitarist and previous guest, Tyler Tomlinson. This one's equal parts inspiring, hilarious, and heartfelt — don't miss it!

This week on the podcast, I'm joined by wedding planner Larissa Marple for an honest and insightful conversation all about the photographer–planner relationship. Larissa shares her journey into wedding planning, how she navigates high-pressure situations, and what she wishes every photographer knew before showing up on wedding day.We dive into: • Common challenges planners face • Tips for smooth vendor collaboration • How to handle conflict with grace • What makes a photographer truly stand out • Encouragement for new photographers stepping into the wedding worldWhether you're just getting started or looking to improve your vendor relationships, this episode is full of wisdom you won't want to miss!Contact Larissa: https://www.fetefw.com/ Email Mollie: molliegoodspeed@gmail.com

Writing with Grit: Kathleen Marple Kalb Tackles Big Issues in Cozy Mysteries Women in media, publishing, and storytelling—breaking barriers and writing fearlessly How do you balance a high-pressure career, a thriving creative passion, and real-life challenges—all without losing yourself in the chaos? Kathleen Marple Kalb knows. As a top-of-the-hour radio anchor and an award-winning mystery author, she's mastered the art of juggling storytelling, news, and family. In this episode, she shares the secrets of staying creative under pressure, pushing boundaries in genre fiction, and navigating the ever-changing media and publishing landscapes. You'll hear how she built resilience after debuting in the middle of a pandemic, why she refuses to shy away from tough topics in her books, and how personal experiences shape powerful stories. If you're looking for real-world strategies to fuel your creativity and build a career on your terms, this conversation is for you. Connect with Kathleen (AKA Nikki Knight) Website: https://kathleenmarplekalb.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kathleen-Marple-Kalb-1082949845220373/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathleenmarplekalb/ Threads: @kathleenmarplekalb Bluesky: @mysterymarple.bsky.social The Hound of the Bonnevilles Preorder link https://www.amazon.com/Hound-Bonnevilles-Grace-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/1684428033/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=   Connect with Izolda Flip Your Inner Script to Stop Negative Thoughts From Ruining Your Day. Website: https://IzoldaT.com BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/izoldat.bsky.social. Book Your Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/izoldat/discovery-call New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/90481/izolda-trakhtenberg Submit a Play to the Your Creative Table Read Podcast Series One Minute Movies A Close Shave Career Suicide Diz Wit   This episode is brought to you by Brain.fm. I love and use brain.fm! It combines music and neuroscience to help me focus, meditate, and even sleep! Because you listen to this show, you can get a free trial and 20% off with this exclusive coupon code: innovativemindset. (affiliate link) URL: https://brain.fm/innovativemindset It's also brought to you by my podcast host, Podbean! I love how simple Podbean is to use. If you've been thinking of starting your own podcast, Podbean is the way to go!** Are you getting anything out of the show? I'd love it if you would buy me a coffee.   Listen on These Channels Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Podbean | MyTuner | iHeart Radio | TuneIn | Deezer | Overcast | PodChaser | Listen Notes | Player FM | Podcast Addict | Podcast Republic |  

Miss Marple isn't an old duffer - she's a swinging cat! At least that's what Mark and Gray discover this episode when they shine a light on Agatha Christie's beloved sleuth. In particular we look at her 1960s outings, plus her Swinging-era cases in the recent 2021 short story collection, in stories by Alyssa Cole, Naomi Alderman, Jean Kwok, Dreda Say Mitchell, Karen M. McManus and Leigh Bardugo.You can find us on Instagram @Christie_Time. We are on BlueSky at christietime.bsky.social. Please do subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.Our website is ChristieTime.com.The Swinging Christies is a Christie Time project by Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown.Next episode: we travel to India!00:00:00 - Opening titles00:00:50 - Introductory chat00:07:00 - Why the Sixties belong to Miss Marple00:15:09 - The Swinging-era Marple: Twelve New Stories00:19:01 - Miss Marple Takes Manhattan by Alyssa Cole00:29:20 - The Open Mind by Naomi Alderman00:41:45 - The Jade Empress by Jean Kwok00:44:43 - A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell00:52:44 - The Murdering Sort by Karen M. McManus00:58:26 - The Disappearance by Leigh Bardugo01:04:59 - Tackling racism in these stories01:16:17 - How to get in touch01:17:17 - Closing titles01:17:44 - CodaTW: discussion of racism and antisemitism

Abby and Katie head to St. Mary Mead and beyond to uncover the very best Marple, and the very best episode of this sometimes controversial series. Will they agree that the IMDB voters have correctly deduced the top episode? That's about as likely as Jane leaving it up to the lead detective to solve the case.Did we get it right or wrong? Drop us an email at mustseeIMDB@gmail.com and tell us all about it.

During Hour 3 UofA Golden Bears Hockey GM Stan Marple joined the show teeing up the team's playoff series against Calgary this weekend from Clare Drake Arena. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whole lotta love going on in this episode!  Arthur talks being trans in these interesting times in his corner as well as Invader Zim, the Moomans and snow days.  Dad gets so excited he bleeps himself, and he is the only one who knows what a rimshot (hint it's NOT dirty), Laura talks reading smut, we celebrate being a family AND discuss the life of British mystery writer Agatha Christie and her strange 10 day disappearance in this little bit historical and whole lotta family episode of the Family Plot Podcast!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.

Chatting With Sherri welcomes back Agatha Christie author and expert; Dr Mark Aldridge! Agatha Christie's Marple; Expert on Wickedness- A new investigation from Dr Mark Aldridge, exploring a lifetime of Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple. In Agatha Christie's Expert on Wickedness,‘Agathologist' Dr Mark Aldridge looks at nearly a century of St Mary Mead's most famous resident and uses his own detective skills to uncover new information about Miss Jane Marple's appearances on page, stage, screen and beyond. The Swinging Christies podcast- Agatha Christie may not be the first person you think of when you think of the Swinging Sixties, but her writing has much to say about the big topics of the day. Join Dr Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown on a rad journey through time with the Queen of Crime. A new surprise bonus episode was released on Nov. 24th! It's great! (I mispoke in introduction, i said Swinging Sixties instead of Swinging Christies,  it is about Agatha Christie in the 60's, an innocent slip of the tongue. ) Dr Mark Aldridge is a senior lecturer in Film and Television at Southampton Solent University, UK, specialising in film and television history.             

Gray and Mark go trick-or-treating and uncover the truth about Hallowe'en parties in the 1960s, via Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie! They even risk their lives - and fingers - by playing a fiery game of Snapdragon! You can find us on X and Instagram under @Christie_Time. Our website is Christietime.com.  The Swinging Christies is a Christie Time project by Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown. You can listen to the audiobook of ‘Agatha Christie's Marple' via Audible, Spotify and all other good audio retailers. Next episode: we delve into the Agatha Archives! Solutions revealed - Hallowe'en Party! TW: murder of children

Clare hikes along a section of the GM Ringway, Greater Manchester's new walking trail. It's a 200 mile route split into 20 stages, starting and ending in Manchester city centre. It goes around the edge of the county through all 10 boroughs of the region, and it's linked with public transport so people can easily access the linear stages. Joining Clare as she walks part of Stage 6, which is Strines to Marple, is Andrew Read whose brilliant idea this was. He was awarded £250k of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to make it happen. The project also depends upon a legion of keen volunteers, several of whom join Clare for today's walk. One of these is ‘Stage Guardian' Roz Hughes who explains how important volunteer involvement is to keep the walk maintained in the long term. The starting point of the walk, Strines Station, was described in The Railway Children. Craig Wright joined the group to share his enthusiasm for this classic children's book, and - while reading a short section - points out aspects of a view that can be recognised from Edith Nesbit's descriptions. Presenter: Clare Balding Producer: Karen Gregor

Our host Philip Berman sits down with Claudia Kersten, managing director of the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) to discuss a cotton monitoring project which is literally out of this world.  GOTS is working alongside the European Space Agency (ESA) and artificial intelligence specialist Marple to monitor Indian organic cotton crops from space – using AI and satellite imagery to verify farming techniques and identify fraud.  The participants discuss how using satellite imagery and AI can distinguish between organic cotton fields from conventional ones. The project, funded by the ESA involved visiting 6,000 fields in India to collect 'ground truth' data, which was used to train an algorithm to identify organic cotton fields. The current accuracy is 80%, with plans to improve it. The initiative aims to increase organic cotton production and integrity, benefiting both farmers and consumers. Future steps include expanding to other regions, and refining the technology for higher accuracy. This accuracy is expected to improve through ongoing refinement and validation processes, involving more visual inspections and cross-checking with existing data. GOTS says that the next steps will involve connecting the market and supporting organic conversion projects.

To mark (ha) the publication of Mark's new book, ‘Agatha Christie's Marple: Expert on Wickedness', Mark and Gray have recorded a special commentary of the 1961 Miss Marple film, Murder She Said. Along the way Mark teases some nuggets of gold from his new book! Listen on to the end for an exclusive sneak peek of the audiobook of ‘Agatha Christie's Marple', read by Jane Slavin! You can find us on X and Instagram under @Christie_Time. Our website is Christietime.com.  The Swinging Christies is a Christie Time project by Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown. You can download the audiobook of ‘Agatha Christie's Marple', read by Jane Slavin, via Audible, Spotify and all good audio retailers. Next episode: Hallowe'en! Solutions revealed! - 4.50 from Paddington

Hear about the recruiting class of 2024 from the general manager and head coach of the Alberta Golden Bears hockey program, Stan Marple and Ian Herbers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The introduction and outro words are abbreviated this week. I will regale you with the tale of the Avon Lake Toronado next. Now I need to find a way of making everything work without electricity and the Internet.  I am not sure which is making me crazier.  The SPaMCAST 823 features a discussion with Kirk Marple, Technical Founder and CEO at Graphit, by Unstruk Data. What is a technical founder you might ask?  No?  Well, I did. More importantly, we discussed  AI, knowledge graphs, leadership, and how organizations learn as they understand their data.  Check out Graphit at  Check out Kirk on LinkedIn at Re-read Saturday News This week we have the concluding thoughts of Flow.  We will begin the re-read of (buy a copy and read along) next week.  Buy a copy of Flow and read along –   Week 1: –   Week 2: –   Week 3: –   Week 4: –   Week 5:   Week 6: Week 7: Week 8: Week 9: Week 10: Week 11: Next SPaMCAST  The SPaMCAST 824 will include the story of the Avon Lake tornado, the sound of and smell of generators in the morning, an addiction to electricity and the internet, and a conversation with Jon M. Quigley. 

Welcome to season 3 of Tea & Murder! This episode is sponsored by Bond and Grace. Bond and Grace is a women-founded literary brand producing art novels, fine art, and art prints. They make incredible gifts for book lovers of all kinds! Bond and Grace is giving our readers 20% off of their art novels and prints with the code TEA20.In this episode, host Rebecca Thandi Norman chats with illustrator Ilya Milstein, who among many other things, draws the World of Agatha Christie puzzles! We discuss The Witness for the Prosecution in both its short story and play forms, as well as what it takes to visually adapt Christie's work. Ilya takes us through his journey to become an illustrator and why he is so particular about how he represents characters like Poirot and Marple.**There are some spoilers in this episode.**Learn more about Ilya's work.Buy the World of Agatha Christie puzzles (here's the Poirot one!).The next episode we'll be reading The Secret Adversary.Have feedback for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at teaandmurderpodcast@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @teaandmurder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Case of the Lobby Larceny: A Sticky Situation on The BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Healing Hour Don't Get Fleeced in the Waiting Room! The Case of the Lobby Larceny! #BeSecuritySavvy, #HolisticHealth, #PatientSafety, #BHSalesKennelKelpHolisticHealingHour, Grandpa Bill: The host, our wise and witty detective. Ms. Marple GB Wife Gram: A sharp-eyed, elderly patient with a knack for noticing details. Shifty Sid (Developing Character TBD): A suspicious character lurking in the lobby. Grandpa Bill: Welcome back to The BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Healing Hour! Today, we're investigating a crime that hits close to home: Lobby Larceny! Yep, those pesky petty thefts that can snatch your phone or wallet faster than a #spooked squirrel,! My wife- Ms. Marple: But fear not, partners! We've got a seasoned sleuth on the case: Ms. Marple(my wife gram), a keen observer with eyes sharper than a #hawk's beak! Ms. Marple(my wife gram) describes the scene: Ms. Marple tells us about a shifty character hanging around the lobby, eyeing phones and wallets. He seems to disappear right before someone reports a missing item! Grandpa Bill explains preventative measures: Now, partners, let's turn the tables on this thief! We'll use the Magnetic Memory Method to create a security checklist to keep your belongings safe: Mnemonics for Security: (Grandpa Bill working on): By following these P.O.C.K.E.T.S. principles, partners, you can outsmart any lobby lurker! Remember, a little vigilance goes a long way in protecting your personal belongings. Until next time, stay safe and stay healthy! Having Ms. Marple(my wife gram) witness a near-theft and describe the suspect's appearance (clothing, mannerisms) to build suspense and listener/reader engagement. Holistic Health Secrets and Life-Sales Strategies with Grandpa Bill Nourish Your Soul, Boost Your Business: The BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Healing Hour Experience Website: https://www.7kmetals.com/grandpabill YouTube: Bill Holt@billholt8792 Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/bill.sales.524 Social Media:https://www.instagram.com/bradybrodyboy12/ Voicemail Message Board: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bhsales BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Healing Hour Retired holistic health enthusiast, Grandpa Bill, shares his wisdom and experiences in the realms of health, wealth, and well-being. Join Grandpa Bill on his journey of holistic health and personal growth. With over 45 years of experience in the industry, he has a wealth of knowledge to share on topics ranging from nutrition and supplements, to meditation and spirituality. In his retirement, Grandpa Bill is dedicated to sharing his insights and helping others to achieve their full potential. He is an intuitive thinker, humorist, star seed, poetry fan, with a passion for history and coins. Hosted by Grandpa Bill, 45 year career now retired Disclaimer:This podcast site content is provided for informational purposes only, and does not intend to substitute professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. JOIN US EVERY TUESDAY AT 6PM. EST.  Seth Leaf Pruzansky Freedom Snap-⁠https://freedomsnap.org/Seth/⁠ https://www.imawakenowwhat.com/ BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Virtual Mall Patriot Supply Link:  ⁠⁠⁠https://mypatriotsupply.com/?rfsn=5615494.137cb6⁠⁠⁠ Health Ranger Link: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.healthrangerstore.com/?⁠⁠rfsn=301296.96452b2&utm_source=HR_Affiliate&utm_campaign=14708&utm_affiliate=301296⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Healer.com⁠⁠⁠⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.HealerCBD.com/?ref=11⁠⁠ Tim Doyle Path to Oneness-https://thepathtooneness.com/  Byron Athene -https://byronathene.com/ Isabella Thor,NLP-https://isabellathor.com/ Seth Leaf Pruzansky Freedom Snap-⁠https://freedomsnap.org/Seth/⁠ https://www.imawakenowwhat.com/ Holistic Actions-https://www.holisticactions.com Dr.Anthony Metivier -https://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/ Raquel Spring-https://www.raquelspring.com

Dan shares a most wild story of creepy Adobe Flash curse being passed around the internet. Then, Dan shares what is possibly a more disturbing tale from Bergen Norway of a Death Valley that holds much lore. Lynze has her standard two tales this week. Her first one is not that scary as you listen but then you see the picture take by the folks exploring this abandoned building and you will freak out. Then, in her last tale of the show,  a fan tale surrounding a legend seems to have lasting affects on one kid from a group of friends who go exploring. Patreon Monthly Donation: Stay tuned! Thank you for continuing to send in your stories, Creeps and Peepers!**Please keep doing so.Send them to mystory@scaredtodeathpodcast.comSend everything else to info@scaredtodeathpodcast.comWant to be a Patron? Get episodes AD-FREE, listen and watch before they are released to anyone else, bonus episodes, a 20% merch discount, additional content, and more! Learn more by visiting: https://www.patreon.com/scaredtodeathpodcast.Please rate, review, and subscribe anywhere you listen.Thank you for listening!Follow the show on social media: @scaredtodeathpodcast on Facebook and IG and TTWatch this episode: https://youtu.be/IMQoBoVmVqQWebsite: https://scaredtodeathpodcast.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scaredtodeathpodcast/](https://www.facebook.com/scaredtodeathpodcast/)Instagram: https://bit.ly/2miPLf5 Mailing Address:Scared to Deathc/o Timesuck PodcastPO Box 3891Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816Video/Audio by Bad Magic Productions with support from Logan Ray KeithOpening Sumerian protection spell (adapted):"Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath no home… or one that lieth dead in the desert… or a ghost unburied… or a demon or a ghoul… Whatever thou be until thou art removed… thou shalt find here no water to drink… Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own… Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence, breakthrough thou not… we are protected though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may feel SCARED TO DEATH."

Full Hour | In today's second hour, Dom continues the Dom Giordano Program by telling about an effort in Delaware County to transition a parcel of property in Marple referred to as the Don Guanella site into immigrant housing. Then, Dom welcomes in former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who served as the leader of the Capitol Police from 2019 until 2021, serving as Chief during the January 6th fiasco. Chief Sund, who authored Courage Under Fire: Under Siege and Outnumbered 58 to 1 on January 6, offers some new glimpses into the fateful day, sending over to Dom a letter written by Christopher Miller that proves some questions that have since arisen about the event. Sund clears up the day, explaining whether cases filed against the President will stand up when push comes to shove. (Photo by Getty Images)

Literary giant James Patterson joins Zibby (again!) to discuss three of his recent publications: two nonfiction books, THE SECRET LIVES OF BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS and WHAT REALLY HAPPENS IN VEGAS, and an unputdownable thriller, HOLMES, MARPLE, AND POE. James shares his admiration for booksellers and librarians, highlighting their sense of humor and their bravery in a time of book banning and violent incidents. He recounts anecdotes from all the interviews he conducted (including insights from Judy Blume!). James also describes his upcoming projects and offers his best advice for aspiring authors.Purchase on Bookshop:Holmes, Marple & Poe: https://bit.ly/41MyjPDWhat Really Happens in Vegas: https://bit.ly/4aJvCm8The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: https://bit.ly/3tGnYbyShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens! Now there's more! Subscribe to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books on Acast+ and get ad-free episodes. https://plus.acast.com/s/moms-dont-have-time-to-read-books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter White is an award-winning broadcaster. In 2024 he will celebrate 50 years presenting Radio 4's In Touch, the programme for blind and visually impaired people. He is also one of the presenters of the network's consumer series, You and Yours.Peter was born in 1947 and has been blind since birth. Like his older brother Colin, he has a rare genetic anomaly that meant his optic nerve hadn't developed properly. From the age of five he boarded at The Royal School of Industry for the Blind where he excelled at Braille and won national reading competitions for several years running. He completed his secondary education at Worcester College for the Blind. In 1970 he turned up in the reception for the new local radio station BBC Solent and announced that he wanted to present programmes for them. They took him on and he went on to report and present for Link, the station's programme for blind people. Years later he presented Viewpoint, a two hour live, mainstream mid-morning programme on Radio Solent. His appointment was featured on the 9 O'clock news as he was the first blind presenter to host a live daily topical programme.In 1995 he was appointed the BBC's Disability Affairs Correspondent - the first totally blind person to produce as well as present reports for television news. Peter has presented other Radio 4 programmes including No Triumph, No Tragedy and Blind Man on the Rampage. In 1998 he was appointed MBE for services to broadcasting. Peter lives in Marple, Greater Manchester with his second wife Jackie.DISC ONE: Somebody Who Loves You - Joan Armatrading DISC TWO: An extract from Hancock's Half Hour - Sunday Afternoon at Home with Tony Hancock. With Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams DISC THREE: Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye - Ella Fitzgerald DISC FOUR: Badge - Cream DISC FIVE: Albatross - Judy Collins DISC SIX: The Banks of Green Willow. Composed by George Butterworth and performed by The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner DISC SEVEN: My Old Man - Joni Mitchell DISC EIGHT: We Can Work It Out – The BeatlesBOOK CHOICE: The 1962 edition of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack LUXURY ITEM: Pear drops CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Albatross - Judy Collins Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Eight-year-old Gretchen Harrington leaves home, walking to vacation bible school at a church just a half mile from her home. Usually, Gretchen is accompanied by her two sisters, but this day, she walks alone. The older girls stay home.  It was just after  9 a.m. when Pastor Harold Harrington waved goodbye. Two hours passed before he found out Gretchen never made it to VBS. Hundreds of people took part in the search for the little girl. A police helicopter continuously flew overhead.  Teams of searchers combed the hillside of the community.  Friends and family hand out fliers with Gretchen's picture on it. Some witnesses said they had seen Gretchen outside a car, talking to someone, but nothing came of the lead. Two months later, a jogger found the skeletonized human remains of a little girl. The Harringtons confirmed the clothing found with the body as Gretchen's. It was only 20 minutes from her home.  Gretchen's manner of death is ruled a homicide. The girl's skull has been fractured by multiple vicious blows. An autopsy does not reveal sex assault, but police believe that was the motive.  Now, years later, a new book leads to the capture of a murderer.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Joanna Falcone Sullivan - Co-author: ‘Marple's Gretchen Harrington Tragedy: Kidnapping, Murder and Innocence Lost in Suburban Philadelphia', Editor in chief, Baltimore Business Journal; Facebook: Gretchen Harrington: Innocence Lost in Suburban Philadelphia    Jarrett Ferentino - Homicide Prosecutor, Facebook & Instagram: Jarrett Ferentino   Dr. Jeff Kieliszewski - Forensic Psychologist, Author: “Darksides;" FB: forensicsandmediapsychologist/TikTok: Dr. Jeff Kieliszewski   Brandon M. Graeff - Chief of Police with Marple Township Police Department in Broomall, PA;@marplepolice on Facebook, X, and Instagram Dr. Karl E. Williams, MD, MPH - Chief Medical Examiner for Allegheny County, PA  Audrey Conklin- Crime Reporter for Fox News Digital, Twitter: @audpants  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.