The Body In The Library
A review of The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie – 230610
As Agatha Christie says in the introduction to her second Miss Marple novel, originally published in 1942, the discovery of a body in a library is one of the greatest clichés in detective fiction. Nevertheless, she set out to produce a variation on the theme where “the library in question must be a highly orthodox and conventional library” but “the body, on the other hand, must be a wildly improbable and highly sensational”.
An unknown young woman found dead in the library of a staid and respectable couple, the Bantrys, fits the bill. The young woman, wearing an evening dress and caked in makeup is not the sort of gal that the Bantrys would mix with and is more likely to be part of the racy crowd that Basil Blake, something in the film industry and recently moved into the sleepy backwaters of St Mary Mead, attracts. Fearing the repercussions of a scandal in the village and the possibility of fingers being pointed at husband and with the local police baffled, Dolly Bantry calls upon her friend, Jane Marple, for assistance.
In a convoluted plot there are two missing girls, one, Ruby Keene, a dancer at the Majestic, and Pamela Reeves, a Girl Guide. The police identify the woman in the library, who had been drugged and then strangled, as Ruby, but Miss Marple is not convinced as there is evidence of onychophagia which would be unlikely in a woman part of whose living depends upon her appearance. The body of a second young girl is found in the burnt-out wreckage of a car.
Jefferson Conway is staying at the Majestic with his heirs, son-in-law, Mark, and daughter-in-law, Adelaide, both of whom should have been financially secure but in truth are cash strapped. Distraught at Ruby’s death – he was planning to adopt her – Conway calls in a retired detective from the Yard, Clithering, to help bring the culprit to justice. Clithering and Miss Marple join forces.
There are a surprising number of characters in what is a light and sometimes amusing read and several potential suspects. However, the burnt-out car confirms Marple’s suspicions as to the identity of the murderer, but her challenge is to prove her theory. A third murder, murders seem to come in threes in Marple’s world, gives her the evidence she needs.
It is one of those novels where the acumen of the sleuth and the blundering investigative skills of the local police are compared and contrasted. The police are too quick to jump to conclusions, to take as Gospel what the suspects tell them, and often ignore what is in front of their own eyes. Miss Marple, on the other hand, takes the stories of the suspects with a pinch of salt and is an alert observer of human behaviour, foibles, and tell-tale signs. Of course, her methods prevail and bring resolution to a case that left solely in the hands of the police would, as their abortive arrest indicates, have resulted in an embarrassing and grievous miscarriage of justice.
The frustration for the reader is that the narrative explores the byways of the police’s botched investigation when they know from the clues subtly placed in the text that there is another explanation which Miss Marple has already grasped. Nonetheless, it is an entertaining and light read, one for the beach. I also find Miss Marple a more engaging and empathetic character than Christie’s other sleuthing giant, Hercule Poirot.
