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    The Murder at the Vicarage: A Miss Marple Mystery
    The Murder at the Vicarage: A Miss Marple Mystery
    The Murder at the Vicarage: A Miss Marple Mystery
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Murder at the Vicarage: A Miss Marple Mystery

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Joan Hickson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The Murder at the Vicarage is Agatha Christie’s first mystery to feature the beloved investigator Miss Marple—as a dead body in a clergyman’s study proves to the indomitable sleuth that no place, holy or otherwise, is a sanctuary from homicide.

    Miss Marple encounters a compelling murder mystery in the sleepy little village of St. Mary Mead, where under the seemingly peaceful exterior of an English country village lurks intrigue, guilt, deception and death.

    Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing land-owner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone--even in the vicar--wishes he were dead. And very soon he is--shot in the head in the vicar's own study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer.

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062234230
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

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    Reviews for The Murder at the Vicarage

    4/5

    152 ratings88 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Fantastic story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you reading. Agatha Christie is the queen of distraction and mystery.
    • 4/5
      Narrated by the Vicar, Mr. Clement, this book features Miss Marple. Colonel Protheroe is discovered dead in the vicar's study after the vicar has been called out to visit a sick parishioner. There is no shortage of suspects, and most of them have alibis for the time of the murder. There is, in fact, a bit of confusion about the time of the murder due to the vicar's habit of setting clocks fast in order to be punctual. The Vicar works with the police in order to help solve the murder, but is his neighbor Miss Marple who provides the solution. It's been a long time since I had read this installment. While it's not my favorite Christie novel, it is one that is quite satisfying to those who don't want a mystery's solution to be overly simplistic.
    • 3/5
      Eh. I liked the narrator a lot better than Hastings, but otherwise it was a little dull.
    • 4/5
      Miss Marple is such a wonderful idea. She's smart, but overlooked by society who's willing to use her skills without giving her any credit. Lucky thing she didn't decide to go over to the dark side, eh?
    • 4/5
      I really liked this one! I thought it started off great and for the first half of the book I could not look away. I love the vicar's personality- he's so to the point and really witty, too. He made me laugh several times over with his observations about the people in the village. He was just a really fun character. I also enjoyed all of his interactions with his wife- just really amusing.

      Miss Marple was an interesting character but despite the fact that the series is named after her, I thought she was seriously in the background! She only appeared every so often and wasn't really involved until the end. I thought that was a bit odd but the vicar did just fine as the the main character in this one.

      The main reason I don't usually read mysteries is because I'm too impatient and I did lose my patience with this one a bit towards the end. Nothing to do with the book though- just my own personal preference when reading.
    • 3/5
      very old fashioned-I don't care all that much for the story from the Vicar's perspective
    • 5/5
      Ha, Inspector Slash is hilariously sexist. This book is great.

    • 3/5
      Too many red herrings to be believable. Still, decent mystery and a nice introduction to Marple.
    • 4/5
      The first of the Miss Marple series. Agatha Christie is one of the the best known mystery authors from the Golden Age. She was a prolific writer. The Miss Marple series features an old woman who has the knack of observation which leads her to solve mysteries. This murder occurs in the vicarage. The body is found sitting at the office desk with a gunshot to the head. As always there are many likely candidates for the murderer and it takes Miss Marple to help the police see the wisdom of her theory. Agatha Christie’s mysteries are always entertaining.
    • 5/5
      This is the first Miss Marple book, and I think it must be the best Miss Marple I've read. I like that in this book we get an unusually large dose of Miss Marple. She's a full and important character, unlike some later books in which she is only tangential. This book has Miss Marple working on her home turf of St. Mary Mead. Colonel Protheroe, a man no one liked, is found murdered in the vicarage. The narrator of the story is the vicar, and he is endowed with a slightly sarcastic sense of humor. In ambiance and complexity this is one of Christie's best.
    • 5/5
      Colonel Protheroe is not a popular man in St Mary Mead – even the vicar mentions casually during lunch that the world would be better off without him. So when the colonel unexpectedly turns up dead at the vicarage the following day, there is no shortage of suspects – until they're eliminated from the police's enquiries. Luckily Miss Marple is at hand with her valuable insights into human nature to help with the investigations.This is the first novel-length story featuring the amateur detective Miss Marple. Written in 1930, some well-known Christie staples are already in evidence, such as maps of the house and neighbourhood, the future of a couple in love being threatened by events, and plenty of red herrings. While the language and some of the plot details appear quite dated now, the actual mystery still stands up to scrutiny, always bearing in mind that like most Christie novels there is more than a touch of contrivance about it – but as a brain teaser that whiles away the time it is an engaging and fun read.I have to admit that the revelation of the murderer took me by surprise, Christie executing here a rare double bluff, which had not occurred to me. Hat off to the grand dame of British crime fiction!
    • 3/5
      An enjoyable cozy mystery. I loved following the vicar around town as he, Miss Marple, and the police got to the bottom of the murder mystery. I didn't even try to figure things out in advance; I was having too much fun meeting all the memorable characters.My one complaint: The proceedings were perhaps a bit too staid. The tension created in And Then There Were None by the knowledge that there was a murderer among the group - and that they were all targets - is missing from this story. Here, it was just a matter of figuring out where the clues led. Miss Marple exhibits some very Sherlock Holmes-ian powers of deduction as she leads the bumbling police and the steadfast vicar to the proper conclusions.All in all, a good book populated by some fun characters.
    • 4/5
      Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
      ?
      ????
      When the nasty Colonel Protheroe is found dead in the vicar’s study, shot in the head at the writing table with the start of a note scrawled on a piece of paper, the town is shocked. A bevy of detectives, both professional and amateur, attempt to solve this mystery, follow a myriad of leads and clues, ruling out suspect after suspect and hitting a wall. Finally, after the near death of another local man, Miss Marple, in her debut novel, puts the pieces together in the only sensible way. A plan is set to prove the guilt of the clever perpetrator, so the town can resume its peaceful existence.
      I listened to the unabridged audio recording by actor James Saxon. While he did an admirable job of capturing the tone of the novel and most of the male voices, he, like almost every other man I’ve heard narrate, cannot do women’s voices well. I do wish audiobook makers would find a way to hire women to do women’s voices with male narrators & vice versa as it breaks the flow with some of the attempts to sound like women.
      Overall, I really enjoyed this at a 4 star level.
    • 4/5
      Love Miss Marple!
    • 3/5
      This is the first Jane Marple story. It is told in the first person by the character the Vicar. we get to know this Marple through the eyes of the other denizens of the village St. Mary Meade. She is portrayed as a nosy busybody and not quite as likable as she is in later stories. She is really intelligent and as sharp as a tack as usual.
    • 2/5
      This is the second Marple entry into the cool down with AC read along this summer. I think that I would have liked it better if I hadn't read the 4:50 from Paddington first. This was the first book to feature Miss Marple. I feel that Christie got a little tighter with her story lines on down the line. This was the first AC book that I read where what it seemed was really what it was which was a twist in itself I guess. The narrator of this book was not Miss Marple but the Vicar of the town of St. Mary Meade who finds Colonel Protheroe dead in his study. The setting of St. Mary Meade is important in the later books because it is where Miss Marple claims to have become an expert on psychology by studying it's inhabitants. I did love the character of the Vicar and his little snide remarks in his head especially about the maid and her lack of house keeping skills. Of course I love Miss Marple too though I do feel that she is more fully developed in later books. I especially love her wittiness in the short stories. This book should be read to experience the beginning of Miss Marple but the central mystery pales in comparison to some of the other Christie novels.
    • 4/5
      This is my favorite Miss Marple novel. I mostly love the way the village describes here: she's nosy, thinks the worst of people, but she's very observant and mostly right. I love how the killer realizes she was watching and tries to use it to their advantage. It also cracks me up that she knew who the killer was immediately, but was waiting for the others to figure it out. She's a very interesting character.
    • 5/5
      This was the first Agatha Christie book I've read and loved it. I look forward to read more of her books.
    • 5/5
      master storyteller
    • 3/5
      Agatha Christie introduces her beloved character, Mrs. Jane Marple, in this tale. One Colonel Protheros is found dead and murdered, but there are so many people who have wished him dead, the suspect list is quite long. Unfortunately, so is this tale. A bit slow moving at times, it finally gets more interesting in the second half of the mystery. Still, it is Christie and Marple, and fans of theirs will enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      What's a clergyman to do when murder is committed in his home? Start investigating, that's what, especially when Miss Marple lives next door. Leonard Clement is the vicar in St. Mary Mead, a small English village. He's also the narrator of The Murder at the Vicarage, the first full length novel to feature Agatha's Christie's elderly sleuth Miss Jane Marple. When Colonel Protheroe is murdered in Clement's study, the difficulty is not in finding a suspect, but in sorting through all the people who wanted him dead--including the vicar himself!This cozy whodunnit is sure to please fans of the genre, though it was not my favorite of the three Agatha Christie novels I read this year. None of the characters in The Murder at the Vicarage interested me as much as Lucy Eyelesbarrow in 4:50 from Paddington or Anne Bedingfield from The Man in the Brown Suit. Still, any Agatha Christie is top-notch storytelling, and The Murder at the Vicarage is certainly worth a read, if for no other reason then to see Miss Marple at work in her first novel.Miss Marple appeared first in the 1927 short story "The Tuesday Night Club," and was Christie's attempt to give old maids some prominence in fiction. Interestingly, in both Miss Marple books I read this year, her character is secondary to others. In The Murder at the Vicarage, the vicar who tells the story is the most prominent character, and in 4:50 from Paddington it is Lucy Eyelsbarrow who takes center stage for most of the story. I'm not sure this is true of all the Miss Marple books, but it is something I will be paying attention to in future stories in the series.
    • 3/5
      Audio book performed by James Saxon
      3.5***

      This charming cozy introduced Miss Jane Marple, unflappable, curious and observant resident of St. Mary Mead. When Colonel Lucius Protheroe is found in the vicar’s study with a bullet in his head there are plenty of suspects. Still, Inspector Slack is at a loss – there do not appear to be any clues, almost everyone has an airtight alibi, and no one heard the shot. But Miss Marple has been reading some of those American detective novels and she has a few ideas.

      Her role in this, her debut, is really rather small. Most of the detecting and investigating seems to be done by Mr. Clement, the vicar. Miss Marple just volunteers a few choice observations, and, of course, the final explanation. Christie really knew how to craft a good mystery. The plot moves along briskly, there are sufficient red herrings to keep the reader guessing, and the final reveal makes perfect sense (even if it is a surprise).

      James Saxon is excellent as the performer of this audio book. Christie’s works have large casts, and Saxon is up to the task of voicing the many characters in this book. I appreciate that he reads at a fairly brisk pace, too.
    • 4/5
      This is my first Agatha Christie novel, but it won't be my last. Colonel Protheroe, a very unpopular "pompous old brute', is found murdered at the vicarage of the small village where he lives. There is a large cast of characters, most of whom have a motive for the murder, so it's unlikely that the reader can figure out who the culprit is. I found this book to be as charming and droll as the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
    • 5/5
      Agatha Christie weaves an interesting story about a murder that takes place at vicarage. I found myself wanting to keep reading, just to see who committed the crime. The first book in the Miss Marple series, so there is some buildup of material at the beginning that seems to slow the pace of the book a little, but the ending is gripping.
    • 4/5
      Another great mystery with a great twist to it. I guess that should be expected, but the ingenuity of it is so impressive. Reading the Christie mysteries is like eating a bag of those awesome orange Circus Peanuts candies. With a Hires root beer in a glass bottle.
    • 4/5
      Well this is by far one of Christie's funniest books. The story's told in the point of view of a vicar, which may seem frustrating since this is really a Marple story but I found his voice surprisingly engaging and his remarks about the eccentric set of characters that appear in this book are insightful and hilarious. The psychological study and the character study is really good here, you can tell Christie's really building the path for Miss Marple's technique (she says herself her hobby is really obversing people) and it works well. I was disappointed in the solution to the mystery, it was a little too convoluted for me and it lacked tension, but the tone of the book is very different from the Poirot books (which I'm more familiar with) and perhaps in a way the low-key setting suited the slightly far-fetched conclusion. I really enjoyed this.
    • 4/5
      Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie is the first of the Miss Marple mysteries. We are introduced to the village of St. Mary Mead and it’s various inhabitants. Among them is the Vicar, Len Clement, who narrates the story during which a secondary character, the incomparable Miss Marple is introduced. The murder of Colonel Protheroe, who apparently was heartily disliked by everyone he knew, has the village turned upside down it only gets more confusing when various suspects step forward and confess to the murder. Miss Marple with her observing ways and knowledge of human nature is the one who is finally able to put the pieces together and solve this mystery.I was particularly engaged by the vicar and his wife, Griselda. On the surface he appears to be the perfect village parson, proper and earnest, but his inner thoughts revealed a sense of humor and a knowledge of human foibles. And while she totally lacked the decorum that one would expect the vicar’s wife to have, Griselda was charming, forthright and fresh. Agatha Christie always seems to people her books with characters that are on the verge of becoming stereotypes yet they still ring true and are fun to read about. In the small village of Saint Mary Mead, we have an assortment of village busybodies and residents’ daily routines are well known and any variations, however slight, are noted and commented on.In typical Christie fashion, the reader is offered many suspects, lots of clues with a few red herrings scattered about and a final reveal with a slight twist just to keep things interesting.
    • 4/5
      Knowing Mss. Marple A murder history told in the first person by a Vicar. Lot of characters interacting in a good plot. One cannot grasp the answers till the end. Agatha Christie present Miss Marple to her readers. Such a clever woman!
    • 4/5
      I was expecting more Miss Marple than this actually had. Maybe once this moved from being a one-off to being a series Miss Marple becomes a bit more central? Or maybe not. Anyway, I didn't mind at all; I adored the vicar as narrator, with all his own little prejudices and his resigned recognition that these aren't at all Christian of him but humans are only human.

      Also I'm always endeared to murder mysteries where I can actually guess who did it, why, and how. I got a few minor things wrong but by and large I was right, and this is for me a great novelty - ordinarily I'm a total dunce. Possibly this one was particularly easy to solve, I neither know nor care, I'm basking in how clever I am.
    • 4/5
      One of the earliest Miss Marples. Told from the point of view of the Vicar who discovers one of his churchwardens shot dead in the vicarage study. Lots of insight into village life with the first person narrative a rather clever red herring. Enjoyable but not quite Marple in full stride. This Fontana edition has a wonderful surrealist cover.