

However, Christie utilises her setting well in this regard. The murder plot itself relies on so many trivial occurrences that you have to suspend your disbelief more than usual, true.

"The Murder at the Vicarage" skillfully “introduces” Marple, seen as one of just many characters through the eyes of the book’s narrator, who gradually comes to the fore as the only person with the keen eyes and pricked-up ears to solve this perplexing murder. Jane Marple was one such, having headlined several short stories before making her publication debut in this novel. All of these eventually found book form, and the luckier characters therein would go on to headline novels of their own. Throughout the 1920s, Agatha Christie wrote countless short stories for a number of periodicals, featuring many characters – Hercule Poirot, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Harley Quin, and so on. Mary Mead has the police and the townsfolk flummoxed.
