June Whitfield played Miss Marple in the BBC Radio version I listened to, with a whole cast of other supporting narrators. Audrey was an extravagant socialite and renowned beauty, the illegitimate granddaughter of King Edward VII (though she was also rumoured to be his daughter, or the lover of King Edward VIII), featured in the 'Book of Beauty' by Cecil Beaton. Dust wrapper lightly age toned to perimeters of rear wrap, with a small closed tear to the tail of the rear wrap. Miss Marple is a spinster and most of her tales have her sitting quietly in some sitting room and after hearing a mystery from someone, she compares it to something that happened in her village of St. Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts.

She's like Santa Clause or something when it comes to who has been bad or good, and her friends and neighbors would do well to listen to her advice when it comes to the hiring and firing of servants.

Abney Hall became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots. Miss Marple inserts herself into the hunt in her fluffy old lady way, and then shocks the young couple when she solves the mystery for them. Binding and wrapper lightly handled, some score marks to rear panel and a shallow crease from folding to the front panel of the jacket.

Promotional copy for a magazine in the Agatha Christie Signature Edition showing photo of Joan Hickson. When compared to the Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels (the only other classic literary sleuth I am familiar with) – the likeable Miss Marple is almost the antithesis of the wonderful but equally dislikeable Sherlock Holmes. In 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan (Sir Max from 1968) after joining him in an archaeological dig. First, the mystery man in the church with a bullet-wound… then, the riddle of a dead man’s buried treasure… the curious conduct oif a caretaker after a fatal riding accident… the corpse and a tape-measure… the girl framed for theft… and the suspect accused of stabbing his wife with a dagger. Cast: June Whitfield, Rosie Cavaliero, Stephen Critchlow, Alex Tregear, Sally Orrock and Michael Shelford.

So after a Christmas of numerous Poirots on tv, I thought I’d finally finish my challenge, 13 months late. So if you are fast reader it won’t take too long to page through six cases and two unrelated to Miss Marple stories. I guess such stories do not make such gripping TV but at least show other stories rather than a constant stream of deaths.