About The Book
Book: The Body in the Library
Author: Agatha Christie
Standalone or Series: Book 2 in the Miss Marple series
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date (UK): 1942 (this edition 2010)
My Review
I know I must have read some Christie at some point. I’ve watched the TV adaptations, films, been to the theatre, even played the video games. Yet I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever actually read one of the books and Goodreads seems to confirm this.
So I decided to get involved in Read Christie 2026. January’s theme was “Best Opening” and I went with The Body in the Library, which was the official pick, though there were alternatives to select from.
And to be fair, it is a great hook: a married couple’s staff discover a dead body in their library. The opening line however is very of its time, with the wife dreaming about winning first place at a flower show with her sweet peas. This is the second of the twelve Marple novels and interestingly, we don’t actually see much of the titular character until about 40% in. When she is on the page however, she shines with her deductive skills.
The mystery packs in 21 characters and I did occasionally find myself getting some of the characters mixed up. As you’d expect from the era, some of the language is a little dated. I’m looking at you: rummest, recalcitrant, jackanapes and virgo intacta! I didn’t struggle as much as I expected, but I definitely had to make sure I wasn’t reading it when I was tired.Favourite lines include:
• “he’s either a very clever gentleman prentending to be a silly ass, or else—well, he is a silly ass”
• “But it’s my murder, Jane; I want to enjoy myself over it”
• “Do you like detective stories? I do. I read them all, and I’ve got autographs from Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie”
Favourite lines include:
• “he’s either a very clever gentleman prentending to be a silly ass, or else—well, he is a silly ass“
• “But it’s my murder, Jane; I want to enjoy myself over it“
• “Do you like detective stories? I do. I read them all, and I’ve got autographs from Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie“
On that note, I’m always fascinated when authors insert themselves (or versions of themselves) into fiction. From Bret Easton Ellis writing himself into Lunar Park (2005) with the, now defunct, accompanying http://www.twobrets.com website, to Douglas Coupland appearing on the plane Ethan takes in jPod (2006) after referencing himself a couple of times prior to that.
Coupland actually told the Guardian that he included himself because:
“It wasn’t really an ego thing: I just realised that many of us now exist in a secondary fashion, a meta-fashion, thanks to the internet, and the second you is related to but isn’t quite you, so I thought it would be an idea to exploit this. If I put my own name into Google or Yahoo, I will discover that a kind of meta-Doug exists. I exist in there, my name, but it’s not me: it’s a mix of truths, half-truths, nonsense, misunderstanding, rumour, misinterpretation. But the thing is that Meta-Doug is going to exist for a lot longer than the real one is in this world. Once I’m gone, this other me is going to keep on going on the net, cut and pasted and repeated: in the future we will all exist there, in this flawed afterlife.”
(And yeah hi, can you tell what I did my dissertation on?)
Overall, I did enjoy how the mystery was explained away. I was hoping it would be a little more based in the library itself and have a little more of a locked room feel to it. But I did enjoy this and I’m looking forward to trying some more.
Beth Reads Crime 
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