The Moving Finger is book 3 in the Miss Marple series and in a, what I now know to be classic move (after having read a few other Miss Marple books) – the lady herself doesn’t actually make an appearance into well over half way into The Moving Finger. This time of year calls for a cosy murder-mystery and The Moving Finger delivers.
Opening sentence: When at last I was taken out of the plaster, and the doctors had pulled me about to their hearts’ content, and nurses and wheedled me into cautiously using my limbs, and I had been nauseated by their practically using baby talk to me, Marcus Kent told me I was to go and live in the country.
A cosy countryside mystery
As you can see, Agatha does love a long sentence but from it, you learn that our narrator, Jerry goes to the sleepy village of Lymstock to recuperate from his accident.
He goes with his sister, Joanna and together they acquaint themselves with the locals. As with any good Agatha Christie mystery, there is a heady mix of people, all who have their little secrets that come to the surface and, of course, there is soon a murder…
Said murder is prefixed with many people in the village, including our narrator and new resident, Jerry receiving anonymous poison-pen letters, threatening to reveal secrets and accusing them of things that aren’t true. So someone definitely has a motive, but who?
As mentioned, Miss Marple does indeed make an appearance, as the vicar’s houseguest and it’s her shrewd observations that, as usual, pull all the pieces of the crime together.
While I don’t think The Moving Finger is my favourite Miss Marple book (that would be The Body in the Library) I really enjoyed it and am glad I’ve read another of the Miss Marple catalogue.
