First read this in 1973. NEMESIS was the last Miss Marple novel Christie wrote, though not the last one published - that distinction went to SLEEPING MURDER, written in the 1940s, which was subtitled "Miss Marple's Last Case." However, there was nothing at all about SLEEPING MURDER to suggest that it should have been considered Miss Marple's "last case" (and current editions, I believe, no longer make that reference) whereas NEMESIS has an almost elegiac quality and atmosphere to it that might almost justify such a subtitle. Sandwiched between the spy thriller PASSENGER TO FRANKFURT and the dismal ELEPHANTS CAN REMEMBER, NEMESIS almost sparkles like a jewel.

03/17/11: Very much the best of the late-career Christies, a sad, nostalgic and, as I've said, rather elegiac novel, almost permeated with a sense of loss - another reason this would have been more suitable as "Miss Marple's Last Case" is that we know Miss Marple is going to spend her final years in comfort with Mr. Rafiel's twenty-thousand pounds in her current account! She declines any suggestion that she invest it or save for a rainy day:
"There's no point in saving at my age...I mean the point of this money---I'm sure Mr. Rafiel meant it that way---is to enjoy a few things that one thought one never would have the money to enjoy....The only think I shall want for a rainy day will be my umbrella....Yes, I'm going to spend it. you know. I'm going to have some fun with it....Mr. Rafiel would have liked me to have fun."

And somehow, we know that she will!

It's also worth noting that NEMESIS (the last Marple novel Christie wrote) and SLEEPING MURDER (the last Marple novel published) written at least 20 years apart, share a common factor: both are 'murder in retrospect' novels that concern the death of a young woman who wanted to break away from a smothering, unhealthy relationship, and both young women were murdered by someone who loved her - too much.