Most men don’t, but the twinkling irony with which Miss Marple nudges blustering, blowhard cops in the right direction demonstrates how the Queen of Crime inherited just as much from Jane Austen as Arthur Conan Doyle, employing the sly humor that is a hallmark of British domestic fiction. She said that Miss Marple and Poirot never solved a mystery together because “Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady.” It must have been a relief for Christie, in novels starting with The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, to write about Miss Marple, her little old lady heroine, whose quiet expertise in the comings and goings of village life and the universality of human nature made her an unlikely master detective. She had grown to despise her most famous detective, Hercule Poirot, whom she described as “an egocentric creep.” But her readers had loved the high maintenance Poirot since his first appearance in 1920 - his perfectly groomed moustache, his patent leather shoes, his delicate stomach - so much that he was the only fictional character ever to receive an obituary in the New York Times. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.īy 1960, Agatha Christie was apparently exhausted with male know-it-alls.
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