Marple: Twelve New Stories by various authors audiobook review – the sleuth reimagined

A dozen acclaimed authors, together with Val McDermid and Naomi Alderman, create new mysteries for Agatha Christie’s detective to resolve

When Agatha Christie created the novice sleuth Miss Marple, a personality impressed by her grandmother and her circle of mates, she mentioned her intention was “to provide outdated maids a voice”. Beginning with the brief story The Tuesday Evening Membership in 1927 and concluding with the posthumously printed Sleeping Homicide in 1976, the doughty detective from St Mary Mead would characteristic in 12 of Christie’s novels and 20 brief tales.

In Marple: Twelve New Tales, a dozen fiction writers, together with Val McDermid, Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, Dreda Say Mitchell, Jean Kwok and Elly Griffiths, provide you with new puzzles for Miss Marple to resolve. Contributors got strict standards: they needed to adhere to Christie’s interval setting and never mess with the protagonist’s authentic backstory.

Aided by assorted well-known narrators, these tales make for wealthy and entertaining listening. Jodhi Could reads Naomi Alderman’s The Open Thoughts, by which Miss Marple investigates a homicide at an Oxford school, whereas Natalie Haynes’s Homer-inspired The Unravelling, learn by Imogen Stubbs, sees a shell-shocked warfare veteran suspected of murdering a farm employee. Miriam Margolyes has a ball with Leigh Bardugo’s The Disappearance, by which a bridegroom vanishes per week earlier than his marriage ceremony. And Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh brings her imperious tones to Alyssa Cole’s Miss Marple Takes Manhattan, a fish-out-of-water story by which our tweedy heroine goes to the opening of her nephew Raymond West’s play on Broadway.

All of the authors seize the spirit of the unique tales whereas avoiding empty imitation. Marple: Twelve New Tales is the publishing equal of a tribute album, by which writers doff their caps to a literary nice.

Obtainable from HarperCollins, 11hr 29min

Additional listening

Eveningcrawling
Leila Mottley, Bloomsbury, 10hr 48min
When 17-year-old Kiara turns into a intercourse employee as a way to pay for her household’s rising hire prices, she is drawn right into a terrifying world of brutality and police corruption. This Booker-nominated story is learn by Joniece Abbott-Pratt.

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The Journey of English
Melvyn Bragg, Audible Studios, 12hr 9min
Robert Powell narrates the author and broadcaster’s biography of the English language, beginning with its modest beginnings as a minor Germanic dialect.

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