The International Agatha Christie Festival 2017

The International Agatha Christie Festival 2017

2017 DATES: 13TH-17TH SEPTEMBER

A short festival this year, Wednesday to Sunday.

The festival website released some indication of what will be happening during the festival on 27 May. At the moment there are only indications of two ticket prices one of £90 and the other at £120, however, what the ticket will include is very sketchy. It's a case of wait and see.

Any tourism operators that normally provide supporting events alongside the festival are of course allowed to continue promoting these for September 2017, but these events are not part of the International Agatha Christie Festival programme.

The official days are: Wednesday 13^th September to Sunday 17^th September, however, there are other activities going on during the week.

Friday 8th September
Wallingford Museum event: Activity to be confirmed
Saturday 9th September 
Wallingford Museum event: Activity to be confirmed
Sunday 10^th September

·         Wallingford Museum event: Activity to be confirmed

Monday 11^th September

·         Palace Theatre, Paignton: And Then There Were None 7.30 pm £12.00

     TOADS Theatre Company: The Hollow 7.30 pm £12.50

Tuesday 12^th September

·         Palace Theatre, Paignton: And Then There Were None 7.30 pm £12.00

TOADS Theatre Company: The Hollow 7.30 pm £12.50

Wednesday 13^th September

·         Palace Theatre, Paignton: And Then There Were None 7.30 pm £12.00

     TOADS Theatre Company: The Hollow 7.30 pm £12.50
     Torquay Museum: John Curran Mystery Film Night - three films.

Thursday 14^th September

·         Palace Theatre, Paignton: And Then There Were None 7.30 pm £12.00

     TOADS Theatre Company: The Hollow 7.30 pm £12.50
     Torquay Museum: John Curran Mystery Film Night - three films
     The Grand Hotel, Torquay: Murder Mystery Night, 7.00 pm £34.00

Friday 15^th September

Churston Court Hotel: Murder Mystery – Three course meal and wine £45

TOADS Theatre Company: The Hollow 7.30 pm £12.50

·         Saturday 16^th September

TOADS Theatre Company: The Hollow 7.30 pm £12.50
Babbacome Cliff Railway: Murder in Company. Interactive murder mystery on the beach.
Greenway 1950s Garden Fete: in the grounds, 11.00 - 15.00 - no cost, but normal NT entrance fee applies

Sunday 17^th September

·         

Contact details:

http://toadslittletheatre.co.uk/ The Little Theatre St Marks Road, Meadfoot, Torquay, Devon, TQ1 2EL. Tel. 01803 299330

http://www.burghisland.com/ Burgh Island, Bigbury-on-Sea, South Devon, TQ7 4BG.Tel. 01548 810514

http://www.atgtickets.com/venues/princess-theatre-torquay/ Torbay Rd, Torquay, Devon, TQ2 5EZ. Tel. 0844 871 3023

http://www.palacetheatrepaignton.co.uk/ Palace Avenue, Paignton, Devon, TQ3 3HF. Tel: 01803 665800

http://www.dartmouthrailriver.co.uk/ three-course dinner and of course the intrigue of the Candlelight Theatre Company.

http://www.wallingfordmuseum.org.uk/agatha-christie-weekend.htm/ Flint House, 52 High Street, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 0DB

http://www.torquaymuseum.org/homepage 529 Babbacombe Road, Torquay, Devon, TQ1 1HG. Tel. 01803 293975

http://www.torre-abbey.org.uk/visit The King’s Drive, Torquay, Torbay, TQ2 5JE. Tel: 01803 293 593
http://www.babbacombecliffrailway.co.uk/ Babbacome Down Road, Torquay, Devon, TQ1 3LF

*****************************************************************

You can contact the programme organisers: The International Agatha Christie Festival, The Grand Hotel, Torbay Road, Torquay, TQ2 6NT

The Board of Agatha Christie Ltd with representatives Mathew Prichard and Frances Hughes are joined by representatives of HarperCollins publishers, the English Riviera Tourism Company, Francis Clark accountants, and Wollen Michelmore solicitors.  

My Recent reading 2017

My Recent Reading: 36 in 2017

Date	Book Title	Author	Notes / Rating
18 December	Inferno	Dan Brown	5 starts
16 December	Murder Games	James Patterson	3 stars
7 December	The Last Praetorian	Mike Smith	3 stars
27 November	Sleigh Rides & Silver Bells at the Christmas Fair	Heidi Swain	4 stars
20 November	Night School	Lee Child	5 stars
8 November	Die of Shame	Mark Billingham	3 stars
22 October 2017	Cranberry Bluff	Deborah Garner	3 stars
16 October 2017	Kill the Father	Sandrone Dazieri	3 stars
12 October 2017	The Murder Bag	Tony Parsons	4 stars
9 October 2017	Origin	Dan Brown	5 starts
18 September 2017	I am missing	Tim Weaver	3 stars
11 September 2017	Date with Death	Julia Chapman	3 stars
1 September 2017	Ice Blue	Emma Jameson	3 stars
25 August 2017	Conclave	Robert Harris	5 stars
21 August 2017	A Caribbean Mystery	Agatha Christie	4 stars
15 August 2017	When the Music’s Over	Peter Robinson	4 stars
7 August 2017	The Caller	Chris Carter	4 stars
31 July 2017	The Whistler	John Grisham	4 stars
24 July 2017	Personal	Lee Child	5 stars
11 July 2017	Gone Tomorrow	Lee Child	5 stars
3 July 2017	This was a Man	Jeffrey Archer	5 stars
26 June 2017	At Bertram’s Hotel	Agatha Christie	5 stars
6 June 2017	The Seven Sisters	Lucinda Riley	4 stars
25 May 2017	The Emperor’s Revenge	Clive Cussler	4 stars
15 May 2017	The Affair	Lee Child	5 stars
11 April 2017	The Storm Sister	Lucinda Riley	5 stars
1 April 2017	The Shadow Sister	Lucinda Riley	5 stars
20 March 2017	The Breaking Light	Heather Hanson	3 stars
15 March 2017	A Murder is Announced	Agatha Christie	5 stars
9 March 2017	Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm	Gil North	2 stars
27 February 2017	Crisis	Frank Gardner	3 stars
13 February 2017	The GCHQ Puzzle Book	Robert Hannigan	5 stars
23 January 2017	The Moving Finger	Agatha Christie	3 stars
16 January 2017	Death of an Airman	Christopher St John Sprigg	3 stars
7 January 2017	The Winter Over	Matthew Iden	5 stars
2 January 2017	The City and The City	China Miéville	4 stars

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

The Body in the Library

 

Review of the novel The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie.

Published by Harper Collins on 11^th May 1942.

Cost: 3s 6p 1967

ISBN: N/A (Paperback Edition - 191 pages – starts on page 7)

Dedication: To my friend Nan

The Body in the Library is the second full-length Miss Marple novel by Agatha Christie; with The Murder at the Vicarage having been published in 1930, there is a twelve-year gap. However, the story seems to pick up exactly where the previous one left off – but we must accept that Miss Marple has become a little wiser and been observing the activities in the village which will help her find solutions to crimes and mysteries.

The story opens with Dolly and Arthur Bantry, the owners of Gossington Hall, having been woken by their maid, to find there is a body in their library. From the short story collection presented in The Tuesday Club Murders (published in 1932), we learnt that Dolly Bantry and Miss Marple are good friends, so it’s not surprising that Dolly should immediately contact Miss Marple.

Miss Marple’s telephone rang when she was dressing. The sound of it flurried her a little. It was an unusual hour for her telephone to ring. So well ordered was her prim spinster’s life that unforeseen telephone calls were a source of vivid conjecture.

'Dear me,’ said Miss Marple, surveying the ringing instrument with perplexity. 'I wonder who that can be?’

Nine o’clock to nine-thirty was the recognised time for the village to make friendly calls to neighbours. The butcher had been known to ring up just before nine if some crisis in the meat trade had occurred. At intervals during the day spasmodic calls might occur, though it was considered bad form to ring up after nine-thirty at night. [No one] of Miss Marple’s acquaintances would be likely to ring up before eight in the morning. Actually a quarter to eight.

Too early even for a telegram, since the post office did not open until eight.

'It must be,’ Miss Marple decided, 'a wrong number.’

Having decided this, she advanced to the impatient instrument and quelled its clamour by picking up the receiver.

The telephone call is from Dolly Bantry, who insists that Miss Marple should investigate the murder and with that in mind, Miss Marple arrives at Gossington Hall before the police have taken control of the situation. So, five pages into the story we are re-introduced to Miss Marple, her way of life and given an insight into the village of St Mary Mead.

As Miss Marple reviews the scene in front of her when she enters the library. She sees:

…. across the old bearskin hearthrug there was sprawled something new and crude and melodramatic. The flamboyant figure of a girl. A girl with unnaturally fair hair … dressed in a backless evening dress of white spangled satin. The face was heavily made-up …. The finger-nails were enamelled in a deep blood-red and so were the toenails in their cheap silver sandal shoes.

When the police arrive on the scene, Miss Marple and Dolly Bantry quickly leave the library.

As the body is discovered in the village of St Mary Mead, we are again introduced to Inspector Slack, the lead detective in The Murder at the Vicarage. What is interesting in this story is the number of senior police officers investigating the case, partly because the investigation covers two English Counties managed by different police forces; Colonel Melchett, Chief Constable for the County of Radfordshire (which includes St Mary Mead); and Superintendent Harper for the Glenshire police (the neighbouring county).

The reader is given no further details when the police review the body, and it can only be supposed that no further facts would present themselves, however, if the reader were to reflect on the scene they would see that Christie set out important clues that the police missed and Miss Marple would use to solve the murder. The incompetence of the police is reinforced a few pages later when they review a list of persons reported missing:

'Mrs Saunders, reported missing a week ago, dark-haired, blue-eyed, thirty-six. Mrs Barnard – she’s sixty-five. Pamela Reeves, sixteen, missing from home last night … dark-brown hair in a pigtail, five feet five –‘

Melchett said irritably, 'Don’t go on reading idiotic details, Slack. This wasn’t a schoolgirl.’

The investigation takes a new turn when a few minutes later details of a further missing person are telephoned through to the two police officers; a professional dancer fitting the description of the body is missing from a local hotel eighteen miles away in the next county.

At the same time, Christie seems to want to reinforce the incompetence of the police when she introduces Basil Blake, a resident of St Mary Mead, who has a girlfriend with platinum blonde hair and Colonel Melchett rushes off to interview him. However, after a few cross words between the two men, Melchett leaves Blake when the girlfriend arrives on the scene.

The investigation now focuses on the professional dancer, Ruby Keene, missing from the Majestic Hotel. There is more here than first seems obvious; the eighteen-year-old Ruby Keene has become involved in a wealthy family staying at the hotel. Desperate to get away from Gossington Hall, Dolly Bantry decides she and Miss Marple will also investigate the mystery behind the body in the library and book rooms at the Majestic hotel. At this point, Miss Marple is also encouraged to use her investigative skills to solve the murder by the retired Chief Constable, Sir Henry Clithering.

When the body in the library is identified by Josie Turner, one of the lead dancers at the hotel and cousin to the dead girl, the police are left floundering with the case and it’s Miss Marple’s understanding of village life that comes to the rescue.

'With Mr Harbottle it was Miss Harbottle going away. And with the Badgers it was Mrs Badger taking such an interest in Spiritualism.’

'I must say,’ said Sir Henry ruefully, 'that I dislike the way you reduce us all to a General Common Denominator.’

Miss Marple shook her head sadly. 'Human nature is very much the same anywhere, Sir Henry.’

After a second body found in a burnt-out wreck is identified as that of the missing schoolgirl, and Girl Guide, Pamela Reeves it's Miss Marple who feels there is a connection between the two deaths. She insists the friends of Pamela Reeves are re-interviewed and a forceful Miss Marple has one of the girls reveal the truth about the missing girl’s activities on the day she went missing, which enables the murder of Ruby Keene and Pamela Reeves to be linked.

There is so much going on in this story, it would be possible to continue detailing the action that takes place and review it for the part the characters play in unravelling the solution to the murders. Miss Marple reveals that she is on the committee of the local orphanage and has had several servants and young maids to assist her in running her house, that she feels she has had a lot of experience in assessing when a girl is telling the truth and when she is holding something back. A theme that is expressed by Miss Marple on more than one occasion: 'One does see so much evil in the village.' 'Human nature is very much the same everywhere.'

This is a wonderful story with clues dotted throughout the pages and sadly missed by the police in their investigation. In this story, the reader must also reflect on the capabilities of Doctor Haydock, who refuses to budge on the time of the death of the body in the library, but fails to recognise the facts before him that should have led to different conclusions early on in the investigation. It is perhaps too easy to suggest that in today’s police investigations the clues would not have been missed, however, it is the clever instincts of Miss Marple that guides the police to the solution that was missed by so many characters in the story. Christie gives the reader a few glimpses into village life of St Mary Mead and how Miss Marple is able to compare past and present activities of the villagers to enable her to suggest solutions to the unravelling of the murders. It’s not surprising that Miss Marple has become one of the most popular Christie characters, loved by so many of her readers. A must read story: Rating: 5 stars.

Dr Sheppard

7 December 2016