The Moving Finger: A Miss Marple Mystery

By Agatha Christie

The indomitable sleuth Miss Marple is led to a small town with shameful secrets in Agatha Christie’s classic detective story, The Moving Finger. 

Lymstock is a town with more than its share of scandalous secrets—a town where even a sudden outbreak of anonymous hate mail causes only a minor stir.

But all that changes when one of the recipients, Mrs. Symmington, commits suicide. Her final note says “I can’t go on,” but Miss Marple questions the coroner’s verdict of suicide. Soon nobody is sure of anyone—as secrets stop being shameful and start becoming deadly.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Mar 17, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061749810

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was an English author of mystery fiction whose status in the genre is unparalleled. A prolific and dedicated creator, she wrote short stories, plays and poems, but her fame is due primarily to her mystery novels, especially those featuring two of the most celebrated sleuths in crime fiction, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Ms. Christie’s novels have sold in excess of two billion copies, making her the best-selling author of fiction in the world, with total sales comparable only to those of William Shakespeare or The Bible. Despite the fact that she did not enjoy cinema, almost 40 films have been produced based on her work.

Book preview

One

I

When at last I was taken out of the plaster, and the doctors had pulled me about to their hearts’ content, and nurses had wheedled me into cautiously using my limbs, and I had been nauseated by their practically using baby talk to me, Marcus Kent told me I was to go and live in the country.

Good air, quiet life, nothing to do—that’s the prescription for you. That sister of yours will look after you. Eat, sleep and imitate the vegetable kingdom as far as possible.

I didn’t ask him if I’d ever be able to fly again. There are questions that you don’t ask because you’re afraid of the answers to them. In the same way during the last five months I’d never asked if I was going to be condemned to lie on my back all my life. I was afraid of a bright hypocritical reassurance from Sister. "Come now, what a question to ask! We don’t let our patients go talking in that way!"

So I hadn’t asked—and it had been all right. I could move my legs, stand on them, finally walk a few steps—and if I did feel rather like an adventurous baby learning to toddle, with wobbly knees and cotton wool soles to my feet—well, that was only weakness and disuse and would pass.

Marcus Kent, who is the right kind of doctor, answered what I hadn’t said.

You’re going to recover completely, he said. "We weren’t sure until last Tuesday when you had that final overhaul, but I can tell you so authoritatively now. But—it’s going to be a long business. A long and, if I may so, a wearisome business. When it’s a question of healing nerves and muscles, the brain must help the body. Any impatience, any fretting, will throw you back. And whatever you do, don’t ‘will yourself to get well quickly.’ Anything of that kind and you’ll find yourself back in a nursing home. You’ve got to take life slowly and easily, the tempo is marked Legato. Not only has your body got to recover, but your nerves have been weakened by the necessity of keeping you under drugs for so long.

That’s why I say, go down to the country, take a house, get interested in local politics, in local scandal, in village gossip. Take an inquisitive and violent interest in your neighbours. If I may make a suggestion, go to a part of the world where you haven’t got any friends scattered about.

I nodded. I had already, I said, thought of that.

I could think of nothing more insufferable than members of one’s own gang dropping in full of sympathy and their own affairs.

But Jerry, you’re looking marvellous—isn’t he? Absolutely. Darling, I must tell you—What do you think Buster has done now?

No, none of that for me. Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

So it came about that Joanna and I, sorting wildly through houseagents’ glowing eulogies of properties all over the British Isles, selected Little Furze, Lymstock, as one of the possibles to be viewed, mainly because we had never been to Lymstock, and knew no one in that neighbourhood.

And when Joanna saw Little Furze she decided at once that it was just the house we wanted.

It lay about half a mile out of Lymstock on the road leading up to the moors. It was a prim low white house, with a sloping Victorian veranda painted a faded green. It had a pleasant view over a slope of heather-covered land with the church spire of Lymstock down below to the left.

It had belonged to a family of maiden ladies, the Misses Barton, of whom only one was left, the youngest, Miss Emily.

Miss Emily Barton was a charming little old lady who matched her house in an incredible way. In a soft apologetic voice she explained to Joanna that she had never let her house before, indeed would never have thought of doing so, "but you see, my dear, things are so different nowadays—taxation, of course, and then my stocks and shares, so safe, as I always imagined, and indeed the bank manager himself recommended some of them, but they seem to be paying nothing at all these days—foreign, of course! And really it makes it all so difficult. One does not (I’m sure you will understand me, my dear, and not take offence, you look so kind) like the idea of letting one’s house to strangers—but something must be done, and really, having seen you, I shall be quite glad to think of you being here—it needs, you know, young life. And I must confess I did shrink from the idea of having Men here!"

At this point, Joanna had to break the news of me. Miss Emily rallied well.

Oh dear, I see. How sad! A flying accident? So brave, these young men. Still, your brother will be practically an invalid—

The thought seemed to soothe the gentle little lady. Presumably I should not be indulging in those grosser masculine activities which Emily Barton feared. She inquired diffidently if I smoked.

Like a chimney, said Joanna. But then, she pointed out, so do I.

Of course, of course. So stupid of me. I’m afraid, you know, I haven’t moved with the times. My sisters were all older than myself, and my dear mother lived to be ninety-seven—just fancy!—and was most particular. Yes, yes, everyone smokes now. The only thing is, there are no ashtrays in the house.

Joanna said that we would bring lots of ashtrays, and she added with a smile, We won’t put down cigarette ends on your nice furniture, that I do promise you. Nothing makes me so mad myself as to see people do that.

So it was settled and we took Little Furze for a period of six months, with an option of another three, and Emily Barton explained to Joanna that she herself was going to be very comfortable because she was going into rooms kept by an old parlourmaid, my faithful Florence, who had married "after being with us for fifteen years. Such a nice girl, and her husband is in the building trade. They have a nice house in the High Street and two beautiful rooms on the top floor where I shall be most comfortable, and Florence so pleased to have me."

So everything seemed to be most satisfactory, and the agreement was signed and in due course Joanna and I arrived and settled in, and Miss Emily Barton’s maid Partridge having consented to remain, we were well looked after with the assistance of a girl who came in every morning and who seemed to be half-witted but amiable.

Partridge, a gaunt dour female of middle age, cooked admirably, and though disapproving of late dinner (it having been Miss Emily’s custom to dine lightly off a boiled egg) nevertheless accommodated herself to our ways and went so far as to admit that she could see I needed my strength building up.

When we had settled in and been at Little Furze a week Miss Emily Barton came solemnly and left cards. Her example was followed by Mrs. Symmington, the lawyer’s wife, Miss Griffith, the doctor’s sister, Mrs. Dane Calthrop, the vicar’s wife, and Mr. Pye of Prior’s End.

Joanna was very much impressed.

I didn’t know, she said in an awestruck voice, "that people really called—with cards."

That is because, my child, I said, you know nothing about the country.

Nonsense. I’ve stayed away for heaps of weekends with people.

That is not at all the same thing, I said.

I am five years older than Joanna. I can remember as a child the big white shabby untidy house we had with the fields running down to the river. I can remember creeping under the nets of raspberry canes unseen by the gardener, and the smell of white dust in the stable yard and an orange cat crossing it, and the sound of horse hoofs kicking something in the stables.

But when I was seven and Joanna two, we went to live in London with an aunt, and thereafter our Christmas and Easter holidays were spent there with pantomimes and theatres and cinemas and excursions to Kensington Gardens with boats, and later to skating rinks. In August we were taken to an hotel by the seaside somewhere.

Reflecting on this, I said thoughtfully to Joanna, and with a feeling of compunction as I realized what a selfish, self-centred invalid I had become:

This is going to be pretty frightful for you, I’m afraid. You’ll miss everything so.

For Joanna is very pretty and very gay, and she likes dancing and cocktails, and love affairs and rushing about in high-powered cars.

Joanna laughed and said she didn’t mind at all.

As a matter of fact, I’m glad to get away from it all. I really was fed up with the whole crowd, and although you won’t be sympathetic, I was really very cut up about Paul. It will take me a long time to get over it.

I was sceptical over this. Joanna’s love affairs always run the same course. She has a mad infatuation for some completely spineless young man who is a misunderstood genius. She listens to his endless complaints and works like anything to get him recognition. Then, when he is ungrateful, she is deeply wounded and says her heart is broken—until the next gloomy young man comes along, which is usually about three weeks later!

So I did not take Joanna’s broken heart very seriously. But I did see that living in the country was like a new game to my attractive sister.

At any rate, she said, I look all right, don’t I?

I studied her critically and was not able to agree.

Joanna was dressed (by Mirotin) for le Sport. That is to say she was wearing a skirt of outrageous and preposterous checks. It was skintight, and on her upper half she had a ridiculous little shortsleeved jersey with a Tyrolean effect. She had sheer silk stockings and some irreproachable but brand new brogues.

No, I said, you’re all wrong. You ought to be wearing a very old tweed skirt, preferably of dirty green or faded brown. You’d wear a nice cashmere jumper matching it, and perhaps a cardigan coat, and you’d have a felt hat and thick stockings and old shoes. Then, and only then, you’d sink into the background of Lymstock High Street, and not stand out as you do at present. I added: Your face is all wrong, too.

What’s wrong with that? I’ve got on my Country Tan Makeup No. 2.

Exactly, I said. "If you lived in Lymstock, you would have on just a little powder to take the shine off your nose, and possibly a soupçon of lipstick—not very well applied—and you would almost certainly be wearing all your eyebrows instead of only a quarter of them."

Joanna gurgled and seemed much amused.

Do you think they’ll think I’m awful? she said.

No, I said. Just queer.

Joanna had resumed her study of the cards left by our callers. Only the vicar’s wife had been so fortunate, or possibly unfortunate, as to catch Joanna at home.

Joanna murmured:

It’s rather like Happy Families, isn’t it? Mrs. Legal the lawyer’s wife, Miss Dose the doctor’s daughter, etc. She added with enthusiasm: I do think this is a nice place, Jerry! So sweet and funny and old-world. You just can’t think of anything nasty happening here, can you?

And although I knew what she said was really nonsense, I agreed with her. In a place like Lymstock nothing nasty could happen. It is odd to think that it was just a week later that we got the first letter.

II

I see that I have begun badly. I have given no description of Lymstock and without understanding what Lymstock is like, it is impossible to understand my story.

To begin with, Lymstock has its roots in the past. Somewhere about the time of the Norman Conquest, Lymstock was a place of importance. That importance was chiefly ecclesiastical. Lymstock had a priory, and it had a long succession of ambitious and powerful priors. Lords and barons in the surrounding countryside made themselves right with Heaven by leaving certain of their lands to the priory. Lymstock Priory waxed rich and important and was a power in the land for many centuries. In due course, however, Henry the Eighth caused it to share the fate of its contemporaries. From then on a castle dominated the town. It was still important. It had rights and privileges and wealth.

And then, somewhere in seventeen hundred and something, the tide of progress swept Lymstock into a backwater. The castle crumbled. Neither railways nor main roads came near Lymstock. It turned into a little provincial market town, unimportant and forgotten, with a sweep of moorland rising behind it, and placid farms and fields ringing it round.

A market was held there once a week, on which day one was apt to encounter cattle in the lanes and roads. It had a small race meeting twice a year which only the most obscure horses attended. It had a charming High Street with dignified houses set flat back, looking slightly incongruous with their ground-floor windows displaying buns or vegetables or fruit. It had a long straggling draper’s shop, a large and portentous ironmonger’s, a pretentious post office, and a row of straggly indeterminate shops, two rival butchers and an International Stores. It had a doctor, a firm of solicitors, Messrs. Galbraith, Galbraith and Symmington, a beautiful and unexpectedly large church dating from fourteen hundred and twenty, with some Saxon remains incorporated in it, a new and hideous school, and two pubs.

Such was Lymstock, and urged on by Emily Barton, anybody who was anybody came to call upon us, and in due course Joanna, having bought a pair of gloves and assumed a velvet beret rather the worse for wear, sallied forth to return them.

To us, it was all quite novel and entertaining. We were not there for life. It was, for us, an interlude. I prepared to obey my doctor’s instructions and get interested in my neighbours.

Joanna and I found it all great fun.

I remembered, I suppose, Marcus Kent’s instructions to enjoy the local scandals. I certainly didn’t suspect how these scandals were going to be introduced to my notice.

The odd part of it was that the letter, when it came, amused us more than anything else.

It arrived, I remember, at breakfast. I turned it over, in the idle way one does when time goes slowly and every event must be spun out to its full extent. It was, I saw, a local letter with a typewritten address.

I opened it before the two with London postmarks, since one of them was a bill and the other from a rather tiresome cousin.

Inside, printed words and letters had been cut out and gummed to a sheet of paper. For a minute or two I stared at the words without taking them in. Then I gasped.

Joanna, who was frowning over some bills, looked up.

Hallo, she said, what is it? You look quite startled.

The letter, using terms of the coarsest character, expressed the writer’s opinion that Joanna and I were not brother and sister.

It’s a particularly foul anonymous letter, I said.

I was still suffering from shock. Somehow one didn’t expect that kind of thing in the placid backwater of Lymstock.

Joanna at once displayed lively interest.

"No? What does it say?"

In novels, I have noticed, anonymous letters of a foul and disgusting character are never shown, if possible, to women. It is implied that women must at all cost be shielded from the shock it might give their delicate nervous systems.

I am sorry to say it never occurred to me not to show the letter to Joanna. I handed it to her at once.

She vindicated my belief in her toughness by displaying no emotion but that of amusement.

What an awful bit of dirt! I’ve always heard about anonymous letters, but I’ve never seen one before. Are they always like this?

I can’t tell you, I said. It’s my first experience, too.

Joanna began to giggle.

"You must have been right about my makeup, Jerry. I suppose they think I just must be an abandoned female!"

That, I said, coupled with the fact that our father was a tall, dark lantern-jawed man and our mother a fair-haired blue-eyed little creature, and that I take after him and you take after her.

Joanna nodded thoughtfully.

Yes, we’re not a bit alike. Nobody would take us for brother and sister.

Somebody certainly hasn’t, I said with feeling.

Joanna said she thought it was frightfully funny.

She dangled the letter thoughtfully by one corner and asked what we were to do with it.

The correct procedure, I believe, I said, is to drop it into the fire with a sharp exclamation of disgust.

I suited the action

Reviews for The Moving Finger

[crazy4reading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this story. Even though Miss Marple was not present during the whole story I quite enjoyed the other characters. The Moving Finger is a mystery of who is writing these anonymous letters to the residents of a quiet little town called Lymstock and who murdered the maid. I enjoyed the interaction of the out of town guests on holiday Jerry and Joanna Burton, brother and sister.

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lymstock, England, ca 1940.Jerry Butler er pilot i RAF og efter et slemt styrt har han brug for fred og ro til at komme sig så han kan smide krykkestokkene. Han og søsteren Joanna flytter derfor til Lymstock, hvor de lejer et lille hus Little Furze af en sød ældre dame Miss Emily Barton. Efter en uges tid dukker et anonymt brev op, der påstår at de ikke er bror og søster. Da lægen lidt senere kommer for at checke op på Jerry, kan han fortælle at brevene florerer. En pudsig detalje er at brevene ser ud til at være skrevet af en ældre dame, men udmærker sig ved slet ikke at bruge noget af det autentiske skandalestof, der findes i den lille by. Affæren udvikler sig da sagføreren Mr Symmingtons kone Mrs Symmington begår selvmord efter at have modtaget et af brevene. Politiet skærper jagten på den anonyme brevskriver. En tjenestepige Agnes bliver brutalt myrdet og alle mistænker alle. Jerry har dog fået et godt øje til Symmingtons datter Megan af første ægteskab og tager hende med til London hvor hun bliver fikset op svarende til hendes 20 år. Joanna driller Jerry med at han er blevet lun på Megan og han må give hende ret. Joanna er til gengæld lun på lægen Owen Griffith og til slut bliver begge par viet.Krimigåden løses med venstre hånd af Miss Jane Marple. De anonyme breve er atypiske, så hvis man nu ser bort fra dem, er der en død dame tilbage og ægtefællen er jo altid den oplagte at mistænke. Tilsæt at konen var lidt træls og at der er kommet en sød (men tomhjernet) guvernante i huset for nylig og sagen har opklaret sig selv. Symmington lokkes i en fælde og alt vender sig til det bedste.Smuk personbeskrivelse, som stadig er gyldig selv om miljøet for længst er ædt af tidens tand.Det er næsten en Miss Marple uden Miss Marple, for hun dukker først op til sidst

[slats-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not her best.

[marcusbastos-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Miss Marple Win It All!This story is a little bit different when confronted with other Marple mysteries. Miss Marple and her incomparable wisdom appear late in the plot. With that said, one will experience another well designed puzzle with a lot of good ingredients: anonymous letters, murder, a lot of gossip, even romance. A well written tale presented in the first person by its main character.

[thefallingalice · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jerry Burton soll auf ärztliche Anordnung „dem Stumpfsinn fröhnen“. Er zieht vorübergehend mit seiner Schwester Joanna in die ländliche Stadt Lymstock. Doch es bleibt nicht lange ruhig. Anonyme Briefe werden verschickt, die gespickt mit Obszönitäten und Unwahrheiten auch Jerry nicht verschonen. Niemand nimmt die Briefe wirklich ernst, bis eines Tages durch solche ein Brief getrieben, ein Selbstmord geschieht. Lymstock ist entsetzt. Wie gut, dass die Pfarrersfrau Miss Marple zu Rate zieht.Auch wenn das Buch in die Reihe der Miss Marple Geschichten eingegliedert ist, so ist doch hier Jerry der eigentliche Protagonist. Unterstrichen wird dies durch die Ich-Perspektive der Erzählung. Er schildert den Fall aus seiner Sicht und kommt der Lösung gefährlich nahe, doch fehlt ihm das Selbstvertrauen, die richtigen Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen.Dass er in diese Stadt zieht, sieht er zunächst als eine gute Möglichkeit, Klatsch und Tratsch zu erfahren, um so seine Rückenheilung voranschreiten zulassen. Durch seine sympathische Art wird er schnell in die Gemeinde integriert. Besonders die kleine Megan hat es ihm angetan. Megan lebt mit ihrer Mutter, ihrem Stiefvater und ihren Halbbrüdern zusammen und ist eigentlich alt genug, um auf eigenen Beinen zu stehen. Doch die Ignoranz ihrer Familie ihr und ihren Bedürfnissen gegenüber, macht sie zu einem melancholischen Mädchen, das lieber noch einmal klein sein möchte. Erst die Zuneigung Jerrys lockt das doch eigentlich intelligente Mädchen aus der Reserve.Mysteriöse Briefe und die Beziehung zwischen Megan und Jerry bilden die Fixpunkte dieser Geschichte. Christie zeichnet die Hauptpersonen hier besonders persönlich und sympathisch. Man wird regelrecht in diese Erzählung hineingezogen, es bilden sich stille Hoffnungen und nicht umsonst bezeichnet die Autorin diesen Roman als einen ihrer stärksten. Und damit hat sie meiner Ansicht nach recht. Das Buch steckt voller vordergründiger und unterschwelliger Gefühle. Und dabei kommt die eigentliche Kriminalgeschichte nicht zu kurz. Doch Christie schweift hier auch einmal ab, geht neue Wege in der Charakterzeichnung und das macht diesen Roman so faszinierend.Eine sehr emotionale Kriminalgeschichte.

[nordie_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

with all the adaptations going around, it's sometimes hard to remember if you've actually read the book or not

This is a Miss Marple story, though she does turn up late and is hardly in the story at all.

This is a story of Burton (and his sister) taking a house in the coutry after his flying accident. Soon they have received a poison pen letter accusing them of not being brother and sister, and not long after this people start dying. Burton has most of it worked out, even if he doesnt realise it, before Miss Marple arrives and ties everything up into a neat bow.

Once again, a short neat little story and a quick read to while away an afternoon or two

[rubyscarlett-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved the narrator in this. His interactions with the rest of the cast are absolutely priceless. I love that Christie excels at creating eccentric characters that serve their purpose extremely well. Joanna is quite an exuberant woman and I loved the dichotomy between her and her brother. Some really hilarious lines. The mystery is fairly conventional with a disappointingly flat ending but this is such a comfortable book to read. Marple barely makes an appearance but her scenes are efficient and to the point. Good book.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brother and sister Jerry and Joanna Burton have leased a house in a small English town while Jerry recuperates from a flying accident. The town's tranquility is soon disturbed by a flurry of poison pen letters making all sorts of false but scandalous accusations. What starts out as an annoyance eventually escalates to sudden death in the suicide of a letter recipient. Although the observant Jerry has noticed circumstances and anomalies that put the letter-writer's identity almost within his grasp, it takes the influence of Miss Marple to make the pieces fall together into the shape of a murderer.This is the third novel featuring Miss Marple, and to this point she could be described as a minor character who functions as a catalyst for others to solve the crimes. It seems like Christie hasn't quite decided what to do with her yet. It's one of my favorite Miss Marple novels, despite the fact that Miss Marple makes only a couple of brief appearances in it.

[bke-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not really a Miss Marple mystery. Marple doesn't appear until about 80% of the way through and then as a cameo role. She then appears at the end to wrap everything up. It was like she was added as an afterthought so it could be a "Miss Marple Mystery." Really, Christie could have inserted any of her sleuths and it wouldn't have made much difference.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This one was fun, although I was rather confused at it being a Miss Marple book, since there was no sign of her until more than halfway through. She did arrive, though, a Marple ex machina, solving it all. I could say I found this one easy to figure out, but someone told me how it ended before I got there, so that's cheating.

The thing I liked most about this, I think, was the narrator, and his relationship with Megan. It just made me laugh -- him calling her catfish, and insulting her, and not knowing how fond of her he was becoming. So I smiled at the happy ending. I wouldn't mind seeing them again, in some later Miss Marple book...

Again, a fun snack between meals. A palate-cleanser between doses of Chandler, perhaps.

[jiraiya_5 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This one was a disappointment. The earliest Miss Marple stories don't seem as good as the later ones, except-till now- 'The Body In The Library', which is very complex. I knew this should be a Miss Marple mystery but she doesn't appear throughout most of the book. For another thing, the story takes place in the village of Lymstock, so I kept wondering how Marple was to be brought into the picture. For a few moments I had thought that there must have been a mistake as there wasn't enough scope for Miss Marple to appear and shine.Apart from that the denouement of the mystery itself is a disappointment. The old habit of setting up the spouse as the engineer of all the evil in the book-including the murders-is vintage Agatha Christie. But here the mystery is not as intriguing and not as impossible as her finer work. One of the lesser tricks employed in the story was to make the reader believe that the guilty must be a woman; an embittered woman who may or may not be a lady. But that didn't wash with me. There were not many false clues lying about, as the story was told from the perspective of Jerry Burton.Jerry Burton marries Megan Symmington. His sister Joanna marries Owen Griffth. I kept up with this book better whenever Megan was being described...what she wore, how she had a horse face...how childish her words were, how, when she cried, she rather bawled. She was crucial to my enjoyment of the book. To be honest the two way love between Jerry and Megan flares up rather suddenly. Near up to where Jerry falls for Megan, she was being described by Jerry as a sad dog who now was glad for having been taken for a walk! I haven't met someone like Megan in my life but I'm certain Dame Agatha Christie has. Any waning interest in her books rekindles because of some remarkable insight or description of hers. She must have met some of those people. She cannot have manufactured them out of thin air. That, I think, is impossible.

[sarah1e · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Murder mysteries aren't usually this charming. That's what's so good about Agatha Christie. The Moving Finger is Marple-lite. The mystery is so small-town - nasty letters are going around and no one knows who sent them. In true Christie fashion, the villagers are paraded past as a string of suspects and the suspense lasts until close to the end. If Miss Marple had narrated, she would have seen the culprit a mile away. She does, of course, save the day. This book has more resolution than other of Christie's novels, but that just adds to the charm.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie is classed as a Miss Marple mystery, but there was very little evidence of Miss Marple in this book. She didn’t show up until page 142 out of 200 pages, then she proceeded to knit a few rows while solving the identity of the anonymous letter writing murderer.Other than the lack of Miss Marple, I quite liked this book. Set in a seemingly quiet, placid country village, the obscene poison pen letters spared no one and did not hesitate to accuse each recipient of shocking activities. Even with no spark of truth in them these letters caused people to look at one another in a different way and suddenly everyone was under suspicion and accusations were being bandied about. It wasn’t long before suicide and murder followed.With Jane Marple being an almost afterthought, the focus of the book is on Jerry Burton and his sister Joanna, who have come to the village while Jerry recovers from a flying accident. These two are total misfits in the rural village but were two characters that I found very sympathetic and I enjoyed seeing the events unfold through Jerry’s eyes. While The Moving Finger is not destined to be one of my favorite Miss Marple mysteries, it is still going to be considered a very good Agatha Christie mystery.

[therebelprince · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Poison pen letters devastate idyllic Lymstock, but they’re only the beginning…

"The Moving Finger" has some issues - Maurice Disher’s contemporary Times review points out some flaws with the narrator’s voice – but it’s perhaps Christie’s best examination of the sinister undercurrent in these tiny hamlets. The brutal poison pen letters with their filthy insinuations, the blackmail and murder, are at their peak here, with the duality perfectly conveyed through the arrival of our narrator and his sister – a London society couple – who struggle to interpret the difference between the sincere and malicious actions of their new neighbours, in a world with different social mores, hiding all sorts of dirty deeds.

There’s a case to be made for Jane Marple as a fascinating detective – where her observational skills and taste for gossip can one-up the local constabulary – but much of the time she is a secondary figure in her own novels. The general technique of solving a Marple mystery – noticing the background inconsistencies in seemingly implacable facades of village elders – often means the mystery consists of a close reading of some blathering elderly folk. When it works, it works, but too often the Marple books come across as glacially paced. "The Moving Finger", though, is an example of all these elements working, and how.

Later in life, Agatha Christie came to feel very comfortable with Miss Jane Marple (that’s the other factor in the relative decline of quality: Marple books were primarily written after WWII, and thus in Christie’s more patchy era). The best Marple books are those in which – shock horror! – Marple herself does some investigating, and the clues prepared for us are logical… if only we could read them. What makes Poirot stand out as a detective in crime fiction is that – in retrospect – we kick ourselves for not having been able to see what should have been blindingly obvious. Marple is in fine form here: her status as a hawk-eyed gossip makes her a wonderful amateur detective when used well, and this time the clues and facts – gathered by the narrator, the police and our spinster – all make sense. With a comparatively strong narrator, and a nice array of characters, the novel focuses on all the potential suspects while also maintaining atmosphere. Unlike "The Hollow", Marple’s late entry doesn’t damage things: if anything, it allows us to gather clues and then watch Marple figure things out in a far more breezy fashion than usual.

"The Moving Finger" is a clear classic. There are only two flaws: the “ugly duckling” sequence is an unnecessary strain of melodrama (which also led to an embarrassing low point in the Joan Hickson adaptation ), and there is a curiously maligned gay dude. (Christie wrote a few touching lesbians in her time, but gay men seem to have failed her litmus test.) However, these are minor issues for a novel written when my grandparents were children. Great stuff.

Marple ranking: 2nd out of 14

[madamejeanie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jerry Burton is an aviator from London who is recovering from injuries he suffered in a crash landing and his doctor has recommended that he remove himself from the hustle and bustle of London and lease a house in a quiet little village for a few months. So, Jerry and his sister Joanna come to Lymstock, rent a cottage, and set about becoming acquainted with the other villagers. But there is turmoil just under the placid surface of this tiny bucolic spot and a series of anonymous letters start being delivered to nearly everyone in the village, accusing them of horrible secrets and activities. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else and things are brought to a boil when one of the letters causes the wife of the local barrister to commit suicide. But things only get worse when a kitchen maid in one of the cottages is found murdered. The vicar's wife asks a good friend of hers to come visit and Miss Jane Marple arrives and works her "nothing new under the sun" magic, lining up the clues that were right in front of everyone all along.Great read! Miss Marple only appears in the final quarter of the book and the story is told from Jerry Burton's POV, so we aren't allowed to see the workings of this good lady's logical mind, only the results. But it was still a great story.

[riverwillow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Miss Marple only appears in the latter third of the book, but this is an intruiging mystery about annoymous letters followed by murder. The romantic element feels contrived and unconvincing, but Christie superbly evokes the atmosphere of a small village under threat from an anonymous source.

[bookishruth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“Such a peaceful smiling happy countryside – and down underneath, something evil…”-- The Moving Finger, p. 28After a wartime plane crash, Jerry Burton’s doctor advises him to find a nice, quiet country village and “live the life of a vegetable” to speed along the recuperation process. Jerry and his sister Joanna settle in Lymstock, an idyllic country town that is three miles from a main road. It is a place where, as an astonished Joanna observes, “People really call – with cards!” Jerry’s peaceful, vegetative life in Lymstock is, however, soon shattered. A few days after their arrival, Jerry receives a malicious anonymous letter. The letter alleges that the Burtons are not brother and sister, but an unmarried couple living in sin. Jerry and Joanna are initially quite amused by the novelty of receiving such a letter, but they soon view the letter as a sign of something much more sinister.All of Lymstock, it seems, has been receiving these letters. When a woman apparently commits suicide after receiving a letter, the search for the writer intensifies. After another character is murdered, presumably by the anonymous writer, a palpable fear settles over the community. Neighbor suspects neighbor and the whole of Lymstock wonders who amongst them could be capable of such despicable acts.The indomitable Miss Marple makes her first appearance in the last quarter of the novel. For a less skillful writer than Dame Christie, the lack of the primary character could have made this story very tedious for the reader, but Christie’s characters are so well-drawn and compelling that the reader does not notice the loss. The primary sleuthing has been done by Jerry and a few of the other residents of Lymstock, but only Miss Marple is able to connect the myriad of clues and bring the killer to justice.The Moving Finger was originally published in the United States in 1942. For a novel that is over sixty years old, it has aged incredibly well. Agatha Christie’s extraordinary understanding of human nature gives her characters and her stories a timeless quality. One of my favorite Christie novels, The Moving Finger is a compelling read that will keep you guessing until the end.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I can't for the life of me figure out how this title goes with the story, but the story was a pleasant read.

[kateingilo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

read this out loud to Lisa when we were in Jerusalem. One of my favorite Agatha Christie mysteries.

[bcquinnsmom · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I must say, I didn't like this one as well as I thought I would. For one thing, Miss Marple has only a very small role here. On the other hand, it is only the 3rd full-length novel featuring Miss Marple so maybe her creator hadn't really fleshed out her character yet. Brief synopsis: This story is told in first-person mode by one Jerry Burton, who was a pilot for the RAF and crashed his plane. He is prescribed quiet rest, so he rents a house in the small village of Lymstock along with his sister Joanna. No sooner do the two of them settle in than they receive a "poison pen" type letter making derogatory comments about Jerry's relationship with his sister. Well, it turns out that as he's talking to people in the village, he finds out that most everyone has been sent the same type of vitriolic letter. Sadly, after one woman receives one, she commits suicide by drinking cyanide. Another death soon follows, and the situation is out of hand. The vicar's wife decides she's had enough and calls in none other than Jane Marple, who she says is "someone who knows a great deal about wickedness." Surprisingly, Miss Marple only enters toward the end, and doesn't display much of her wonderful talent in this novel. I was a little disappointed but the story itself was quite good, with a kind of unique look at the characters who comprise an English village.I wouldn't start with this one if you are contemplating reading a story about Miss Marple, but it is a decent story and one I'm proud to keep in my home library.

[davidabrams · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pointing FingersAgatha Christie's swift, slim 1942 novel The Moving Finger is a Miss Marple mystery which very nearly does not have Miss Marple.In my version (the spiffy new Black Dog & Leventhal edition), the grandmotherly detective makes her first appearance on page 144 of the book's 201 pages. That's like Bruce Willis making his first appearance in a Bruce Willis movie twenty minutes before the end credits roll. Fifty-seven pages do not allow very much time for a detective to solve a case.However, even though she has what can best be described as an extended cameo role in The Moving Finger, Miss Jane Marple pulls it off in grand fashion, as always.The story is told through the eyes of Jerry Burton who has come to the little village of Lymstock with his younger sister Joanna after he's been injured in a wartime plane crash. His doctor has advised him to "lead the life of a vegetable" in a place where he can find peace and quiet.At first, Lymstock seems like the perfect haven. Sure, the residents are a little eccentric-&#151but who isn't when they live in Agatha Christie Land, right? From the first page of the novel, we're told that something is amiss and it centers around a series of anonymous letters which have been sent to several people living in the village.As Jerry tells us after he receives the first crude message, It seems odd, now, to remember that Joanna and I were more amused by the letter than anything else. We hadn't, then, the faintest inkling of what was to come&#151-the trail of blood and violence and suspicion and fear.That first letter accuses Jerry and Joanna of engaging in sexual activity most unbecoming of a brother and sister. Agatha never discloses the contents of the letters, but lets our imagination dance around the possibilities of what it says. I have a feeling that what we imagine is much more graphic than how readers in 1942 would have filled in the blanks. Whatever we guess the letters to say, the language would not have been suitable for World War Two era readers.During a visit to the local doctor, Jerry happens to mention the letter (which he impetuously burned in the fireplace). Dr. Griffith drops his bag and exclaims, "Do you mean to say that you've had one of them?"The epidemic of anonymous poison letters has been spreading around Lymstock for some time, Griffith tells Jerry, all of them "harping on the sex theme." The local solicitor Symmington was accused of illicit relations with his secretary ("Miss Ginch, who's forty at least, with pince-nez and teeth like a rabbit"), and even the doctor himself has received a letter which claims to have knowledge of him sleeping with some of his lady patients."What is this place?" Joanna wonders. "It looks the most innocent, sleepy harmless little bit of England you can imagine."That is Agatha's forte, of course-&#151ripping away the thin skin of gentility and good manners to reveal the gory, pestilential truth beneath. What reader hasn't known a two-faced, scheming liar who gets his or her jollies out of seeing innocent people suffer? Agatha knew how to craft a clever, often outlandish plot around an ordinary truth.Eventually, the venomous accusations become too much to bear and one character commits suicide-&#151ah, but was it really suicide? Perhaps there's something deeper, darker at work in Lymstock than just flooding the mail with wicked letters. Maybe there's more to it than just "sex and spite." Soon, paranoia is gripping the town: There was a half-scared, half-avid gleam in almost everybody's eye. Neighbor looked at neighbor.The police are called in as more bodies begin to pile up and while the investigators do their best to sort through the psychological patterns they find in the letters, it isn't until Miss Marple makes her late entrance in the novel that we know the village residents can breathe a sigh of relief. It won't be long before this "tame elderly maiden lady" will unmask the letter writer.Sandwiched chronologically between The Body in the Library and Murder in Retrospect, The Moving Finger is a fine addition to the Christie library. Agatha herself was partial to it, as she wrote in her Autobiography, "I find that another one I am really pleased with is The Moving Finger. It is a great test to reread what one has written some seventeen or eighteen years before. One's view changes. Some do not stand the test of time, others do."With its keen psychological probing of rumor and paranoia, this Christie mystery certainly stands the test of time.

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Jerry is sent to the countryside on doctor's orders after a flight accident. He arrives there with his sister for the rest and relaxation, but they quickly find a drama unfolding in the town. Someone is anonymously sending letters to people throughout the village accusing them of uncouth acts (e.g., cheating on a spouse). Things quickly escalate and soon the town is investigating murder.This has to be my least favorite of the Miss Marple series by Christie. For starters, I kept doubting myself as to whether I had gotten the wrong book, as Miss Marple doesn't show up until two-thirds of the way into the book! Even then, she is so few scenes, it's easy to forget about her. (Although, of course, she does end up unmasking the killer.) So much of the book is caught up in mundane descriptions of village life (e.g, how the town is laid out) before the action begins. I really did not care for any of the characters, least of all our narrator Jerry. In fact, Jerry skeeved me out quite a bit with his sudden romantic interest in Megan; although Megan is 20 years old, she is frequently referred to by everyone in town including Jerry himself as a "child." Jerry's own sister says he is only interested in Megan because he wants a "dog" to "lead about on its leash." In fact, the book seems to have rather negative views about women in general, with mentions of how hysterical, jealous, etc. women can be.The mystery itself was really not all that intriguing and its denouement was rather anticlimatic. Christie did manage to present a person I hadn't suspected as the murderer, but the rather mundane husband-kills-wife-so-he-can-be-with-another-woman reveal is much more tame than the scenario I was playing out in my head. Oh well. I suppose not every mystery can be a winner. After this doozy following on the heels of a previous 'eh' Miss Marple mystery, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue on with the series.

[jshillingford_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I’ve been working through all of Christie’s Miss Marple novels, going out of order until I had them all purchased. I’ve read five now, and this was the first one to really disappoint. Miss Marple may as well have not even appeared and there is very little mystery until more than half way through.Jerry Burton and his sister, Joanna, travel to Lymstock so that he can rest and recover after a bad accident. The sleepy little town is unnerved by anonymous letters being delivered to residents accusing them of various unsavory things. The letters turn deadly, however, when Mrs. Symmington commits suicide after receiving one. The police are called in to find the writer, helped by Jerry who has been getting to know all the residents, especially the young and naïve Megan - daughter of Mrs. Symmington. My problem was that the entire first half of the book was really nothing more than gossip, with the occasional reference to the letters. Jerry, with or without Joanna, visits every resident, multiple times, to chat and/or have tea. I was hoping for Peyton Place-like shenanigans, but it was just boring. Even when a person turns up outright murdered, I just didn't care (nor did most of the residents). Miss Marple doesn’t even enter the story until more than two thirds of the way through, and the way she “solves” the case is completely unsatisfying. She doesn’t “observe” and collect clues, or interview people, like in other mysteries. She has a conversation with Jerry, who tells her everything that has occurred, and she just knows who the writer is.The ending, and ultimate culprit, was a surprise (probably because we never really learn anything to point to any particular suspect), which is why I gave it 3 stars. Disappointing, but not enough to put me off reading more.

[mrsrk-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Keep in mind that Miss Marple only appears at the very end of this book--and solves the mystery. Yet, this is an excellent story, and I love the characters. Another big hit from the Queen of Mystery!

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jerry Burton (a pilot recuperating) and his sister Joanna have let a house in the quiet village of Lymstock.... Soon they are victims of poison pen letters, as are most of their neighbors.

When the mother of the odd & unwanted young Megan commits suicide and her maid is poisoned, the village is thrown into even more of a frenzy of accusations & suspicions...

The vicar's wife, who with her acid tongue & pronouncements, is not above suspicion herself, calls in her friend Miss Marple to help solve the problems.

Meanwhile Jerry not only takes a keen interest in Megan and is surprised find his interest to be romantic, but an even keener interest in solving the crimes.

When Megan decides to blackmail her stepfather (at the behest of Miss Marple) the solution of the poison pen letters & the murder is solved.

I liked the mystery, the plot, the romance, and the twists made for good reading, but I found Miss Marple's intervention too pat.

[nelliemc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Classic Ms. Marple -- what's not to love?

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Vintage Christie--ranked against her own competition of jaw-dropping books, such as And Then There Were None, this is a tad less memorable, but it still kept me guessing to the end while playing fair with the reader. Otherwise it's more than solid and has all the hallmarks of her best. There is the picture of life in a small English village in the mid-20th Century, Lymstock, which has been suffering from a series of poison pen letters culminating in murder. There's all the clues that come together in the end like clockwork, the red herrings, the plausible suspects, some of whom you favor, and others you come to care about you so hope didn't do it. There's humor, a nice element of romance, suspense--and oh, and Christie's elderly spinster detective Miss Marple. Although she mostly features at the end with the solution, not coming into the tale until Chapter Six of Eight, only a few dozen pages before the end. The story is the first person account of Jerry Burton, staying at the village with his sister while he recovers from an accident, and he's an appealing character through which to follow the tale.

[julesjones_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Technically a Miss Marple novel, although the little old lady from St Mary Mead barely appears in this one, not even being introduced until the final third of the book. It's told from the viewpoint of Jerry Burton, a war-wounded pilot who has taken a house in the small town of Lymstock to spend a few months recuperation somewhere in the country away from his friends. His doctor's advice was to take an interest in local politics and scandal as a way of keeping his brain occupied without stressing him. Jerry and his sister Joanna get an early opportunity to do just that, when they receive a poison pen letter. when they find that they're not the first, they decide to track down the writer, almost as a game. But the game turns deadly serious when one of the recipients is found dead by poison, with a note saying "I can't go on". Jerry's continued interest in the case is welcomed by the police, for as the officer in charge of the investigation points out, as an incomer he doesn't have pre-existing biases, but as a resident he will hear things that people will be reluctant to tell the police. And so Jerry gets to see in fine detail how scandal and gossip work in a small community, with the phrase "no smoke without fire" as a running theme of village conversation.This is an excellent study of village gossip, with some fine character studies. The main disappointment is the portrayal of Miss Marple herself, who seems a curiously flat character in this book. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I known when starting it that Jerry is the primary investigative character as well as the narrator.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

2.5** The fourth installment in the Miss Marple series has the reader visiting the small village of Lymstock. Jerry Burton has come to the quiet town along with his sister, to recuperate from a bad accident. But they are greeted with a vitriolic anonymous letter, and soon discover that someone has been sending such poison pen missives to most of the women in town. The local solicitor’s wife commits suicide after one such note … or does she?This is an intricately plotted mystery, but Miss Marple doesn’t appear until page 153 (out of 216 total pages). Most of the detective work is done by Jerry Burton and the local investigator, Superintendent Nash. They don’t lack for suspects; it seems that almost everyone in town is a potential culprit, including the vicar’s wife! But of course, after hearing a few casual remarks Miss Marple solves the entire case. There are a couple of romantic subplots which are really ridiculous and do nothing to further the mystery. I recognize that Christie frequently included such elements in her earlier works, but it just irritates me.

[jrsearcher · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Miss Marple doesn't come in until the last third of the book, and even at that point, she's still a secondary character.

The foreshadowing was interesting (but didn't help me "solve" the mystery)

I had to skip to the back and see "whodunnit" before I could finish reading.