JasonKoivu

Murder most proper.

Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage was my first Miss Marple. Now that I've had her I can say with the experience of knowledge, she ain't half bad! Still, I'm not sure I'd want to be caught by my more macho, football playing friends reading a tea cozy mystery. The characters are dapper dandies and old tea-totalling biddies. The high manners and speech abound, aside from that of the occasional parlor maid, flatfoot, or old age pensioner. Beyond primal embarrassment, this sort of thing is just a little too quaint, even for me...and I've read all of James Herriot.

I always say I'm not into the mystery genre, but whenever I read one I'm riveted. Murder at the Vicarage has some clever misdirection. The murder is plausible, the details creditable and the solving of it all rewardingly confounding. I found the writing style reminiscent of PG Wodehouse. A quick bit of research showed that they were contemporaries, living through and writing within the same era. I tally this as a positive as I am a big Wodehouse fan. His work is light-handed, making for airy reading. The same can be said of the few Christies I've read. Mostly stress-free, highly enjoyable stuff that won't tax one's emotions too deeply.