If the Miss Marple mysteries by Agatha Christie hadn’t been redesigned, I probably wouldn’t have gone back to read the early books. I love the cover of The Body in the Library. And, there’s so much I missed when I first read these books when I was in high school.

I was surprised to find a foreword from Christie in this book. I didn’t know she ever wrote forewords to her mysteries. Because so many of think of Agatha Christie as creating so many elements we now see as common tropes in mysteries, I never expected her to say “the body in the library” was a mystery cliche, and she was just waiting for the right library to come along to use in one of her books. She put it in Gossington Hall, home of Colonel and Mrs. Bantry, old friends of Miss Marple’s, and she added the cast as a recipe for a mystery.

It was a maid who discovered the body in the library first thing in the morning, and woke Dolly Bantry. Mrs. Bantry immediately called up Miss Jane Marple, saying she knew she was good at murders, and Dolly Bantry was determined to play amateur sleuth with Miss Marple’s help. A blonde was discovered dead in the library, and no one in the Bantrys’ home recognized her. She said, “What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one’s house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean. That’s why I want you to come and help me find out who did it and unravel the mystery and all that. It really is rather thrilling, isn’t it?”

The blonde is identified as Ruby Keene, a dance hostess missing from the nearby Majestic Hotel. That leads to the entire family of a wealthy hotel guest who was concerned about the missing young woman. And, one hotel guest can’t find his car, which leads to another body. With two dead women, and multiple locations, two police departments are involved, as well as Sir Henry Clithering, the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He recognizes Miss Marple in the hotel lounge, and says she has “a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken as all in the day’s work.” He knows she’s an expert at solving mysteries with what he calls “specialized knowledge”, that knowledge of human nature gained in the village of St. Mary Mead.

While the story is as interesting as all Agatha Christie’s mysteries, I found Miss Marple’s reason for investigating to be the most interesting aspect. As the rumors spread through the village of the body found in the library, Miss Marple knew that gossip would eventually affect the Bantrys. If the killer was never found, suspicion would always fall on Colonel Bantry.

I read Agatha Christie’s books when I was a teenager, and, with a couple exceptions, I’ve never gone back to reread them. Now, all these years later, I appreciate what’s below the surface of the crime investigation. I’m glad these books have been reprinted with gorgeous covers, or I might have never delved deeper into The Body in the Library.

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie. William Morrow, 1942, 2022. ISBN 9780063214019 (paperback), 224p.