Starring Miss Marple Book

A Murder is Announced: * * * * *

Easily the best of the three. A clever opening gambit: a notice is posted in the local newspaper saying that Letitia Blacklock will die at a given date and time. The whole village, being morbidly curious, shows up at her house to see the action. There's an attempted robbery -- and the robber ends up dead. But the question remains: who would want to kill Letitia, and how will they try again? First-class story, plenty of room to keep guessing, some amusing characters, and the solution was not easy to predict, at least for me.

The Body in the Library * * * 1/2

Started this one a long time ago but never finished it. Mildly interesting plot -- a young blonde girl is found dead in the library of Colonel Bantry and his wife, Dolly. They've never seen her before in their lives, so who is she and how did she get there? It's all rather complicated, but Miss Marple figures it out. A solid mystery, but nothing as exciting as the previous one.

Murder with Mirrors * *

Bleah. This one was rather tedious. It involves an old school friend of Miss Marple's named Carrie Louise. Carrie's sister, Ruth, thinks there's something wrong in the household and asks Miss Marple to stay over and investigate. It takes a long time for the first person to die, then two more die shortly thereafter. The whole thing is rather leisurely until the first death, then things proceed rather more quickly. Uneven pacing all in all, and the characters weren't very interesting. The whole thing seemed like a mouthpiece for various perspectives on the rehabilitation of young offenders. Rather thin. Of course, the Marple adaptation will find a way to make this story even worse. :-/

Average for the set: * * * 1/2

Final assessment: Buy a copy of A Murder is Announced. Borrow a copy of The Body in the Library. Forget about Murder with Mirrors.