A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021 — “L — The Body In The Library by Agatha Christie

The Body In The Library is part of the Miss Marple series. It features several familiar and entertaining motifs, primarily, the Library. All Golden Age authors loved using the Library in their books and Agatha is no exception.

The library features prominently in most of her books. It is where the we first see the characters arriving one by one for their country house weekend. It is where guests gather for pre dinner cocktails before going in to dinner.

Many times the Library is the scene of the crime ,the victim being shot sitting at his desk. Or as is discovered in today’s book, the victim is murdered elsewhere and placed in the Library to be discovered.

The library is a convenient, centrally placed room with large windows where the victim’s alterations with one or more future suspects can be overheard. It is also the room detectives are shown into after the murder. It follows therefore that this is where they will be interviewing suspects. All in all, I don’t think you can have the country house mystery genre without the library.

Coming back to today’s book, it is part of the Jane Marple series. The body of a young and beautiful dancer is discovered in the library of Colonel Bantry.

His wife Dolly , enlists the help of her good friend Miss Marple. The two old ladies help the somewhat clueless police with backstory unraveling and interviewing of suspects. After Miss Marple has found village parallels and analysed motives and movements she arrives at the right conclusion.