The Thirteen Problems

This is one of Christie's rather cunning vehicles for marketing very short Miss Marple mysteries, blending one episode into the next, essentially melding it into one tale. So, it's really not as good as her mysteries where it takes an entire book to unravel a bunch of clues in a single murder but it's still pretty good. Some of these stories also crop up elsewhere in other compendiums of Christie's work. The chief theme here is that local aristocrats sit around a table and each person spins a mystery for the rest to solve. Of course, Miss Marple solves them all, entirely based upon her endless observations of human nature in her home Hamlet of St. Mary Mead. A few of these tales are a stretch to one's imagination, ergo, "The Thumb Mark of St. Peter"... in other words, a little silly. As a final story, Miss Marple is made aware of a local murder and she knows that the wrong person has been accused of the crime and will almost certainly hang for it if she doesn't break the case. She, thus, enlists the aid of her influential friend, Sir Henry Clithering, ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, in seeing that justice prevails. In this book, there are 13 stories in all, each running a several pages in length. Due to the type of book that it is, I recommend that potential buyers opt for the paperback version which travels easily with you to the doctor's office, or to work if you have an easy job. I certainly recommend the book but, if it were me, I'd just borrow it from the library unless you are a Christie collector.

This 1932 collection was also published as THE TUESDAY CLUB MURDERS. Many of the stories have also appeared separately in other collections. Like THE LABORS OF HERCULES and PARTNERS IN CRIME it is a series of short stories bridged together in an arc. The opening setting is a gathering in St. Mary Mead at Jane Marple's cottage, attended by her nephew writer Raymond West, artist Joyce Lempriere, Sir Henry Clithering - retired Scotlandyard commissioner, Dr. Pender - the local clergyman, and solicitor Mr. Petherick. The group decides to entertain themselves by describing puzzling crimes they have experienced and to challenge the rest of the group to arrive at the solution. The group at first does not plan to include Miss Marple in their game but condescend to do so when she objects. Naturally Aunt Jane arrives at all the answers. The following year Sir Henry Clithering was visiting his friends the Bantrys (THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY), and mentioned his previous trip to St. Mary Mead and Miss Marple. After dinner that evening another evening of curious problems took place. This time the group included Col. and Mrs. Bantry, Dr. Lloyd, actress Jane Helier as well as Sir Henry and Miss Marple. Again Miss Marple had all the answers, including one to a crime that hadn't happened yet.The final problem was presented sometime later when Sir Henry was again visiting his friends, the Bantrys. A village girl, the daughter of the local pub owner, had killed herself the night before, sad but of no particular interest to Sir Henry. No interest that is, until Miss Marple arrived to request that Sir Henry investigate the murder, not suicide, of the girl. She even gave Sir Henry the name of the murderer! Sir Henry agreed to look into matter and.....well, read the storyThe mysteries are all perfect little Christie gems, challenging the reader (with all the clues tucked in among the red herrings) to solve the crime before Miss Marple. The device of linking the stories in post dinner party conversation is charming. It is wonderful to meet characters that will return in other Miss Marple stories: Raymond West and Joyce Lempriere; Col. and Dolly Bantry; and Sir Henry Clithering.

Christie has a way of peppering in intrigue, complications and duplicity, and supplying a common sense conclusion based on combining experience and appreciation of human nature and simplicity. "People are really much the same" is the catch phrase of this book they just opperate on different scales of vice and volume but the nature is the same and drawing conclusions from human nature the same whether in a small country town or a large city. Some of the endings were highly contrived.

Estos relatos constituyen la primera aparicion de Miss Marple en el la literatura del genero policiaco. Estan hilvanadas bajo la reunion del llamado Club de los Martes, en el que cada personaje alli reunido debe traer un problema real que todos deben tratar de solucionar. Miss Marple, una anciana solterona que vive un pueblecito ingles, dara a todos una autentica leccion de sagacidad para resolver estos variados misterios, desde el crimen que nunca fue cometido, hasta el que se repitio dos veces. Por un lado, el hecho de que sean 13 relatos, hace que uno pueda leerlos de uno en uno si no tiene mucho tiempo para dedicarle a la lectura...Pero a su vez captan el interes de una forma que cuesta trabajo dejar el libro antes de alcanzar la ultima pagina.

I'm one of thoes readers who have difficulty sticking with a long and sometimes drawn-out novel. In the busy life style of today it is hard to read a full novel for some people. If you are one of hese, like myself, this is the answer to your need.I find to read a full novel; I must put it down constantly to do other things. I am ashamed to admit that when I do there is an inodinate problem in picking up the threads of where I left off! By this you can tell I am not an avid reader and one who does not read in bed.Dame Agatha has solved this mystry for her readers by presenting these thirteen gems that allow the reader the ability to complete one at a time and at their speed and pace.Out of sufferance to her nephew, the members of the "Tuesday Night Club" agree to permit his elderly aunt, Miss Jane Marple to participate in their challenge to solve the mystery they individually present each week. Only the storyteller, of course knows the answer to their tail of murder, mayhem or just curious tail unsolved by others. It soon becomes clear that contrary to the club member's initial thoughts, this gentle Victorian lady, or is it Edwardian, has more on her mind than knitting. Following the recitation of the individual stories, the club members are astonished at first but soon are full of admiration, forsome with prhaps a little ranker, that the diminutive lady demonstrates shuch prowess in the knowledge of crime and criminals.As she recounts happenings in her little village of Saint Mary Mead regarding people that the club members do not know, nor are are they likely to want to know, she draws the parallels that assist in the solution of their cases. At first they approach her similarities between their story and those of Miss Marple's with distain. Once she demonstrates that her belief that all people are the same and that crime commiuted in her little English village and that perpertrated in the "City" are one and the same, her listeners begin to see that her little stories are not the fatuitous babblings of a senile senior citizen.The reader could be taken in as the club members were it not for their knowledge of this marvelous created character of the one and only Agatha Christie, the Queen of Mystery. I say this with the assuance that there are few in the civilized world that have not heard of Dame Agatha and the multitude of books and short stories penned by her over so many years.A must read for the Christie devotee and to be read again if not already done so.