<\/p>\n

It’s finally happened, denizens. I am no longer an Agatha Christie virgin. <\/p>\n

It was bound to take place sooner or later. One simply cannot claim a love of literature without giving a go to all those “prime suspect” authors whose works continue to be highly revered by fans and critics of their respective genres. <\/p>\n

I suppose I was late to the Christie party because her novels reign within a literary realm I rarely visit: the detective genre. I’m still not really sure why this genre is so hit-or-miss with me, but I do keep giving it a go. One day, something from its hallowed halls will simply knock my socks off. <\/p>\n

The Murder at the Vicarage<\/a><\/em> wasn’t necessarily the sock-knocking “something” in question. Not that I was expecting it to be. Honestly, I wasn’t quite certain what to expect. I have seen several of the BBC Miss Marple and Poirot offerings, but I don’t think I ever paid attention to them while watching them. They were sort of background noise while I did something else. And even though I claim to be quite the Anglophile and to have a deeply genetic connection to all things England, I’ve never even considered going to see The Mousetrap<\/em> while in London. <\/p>\n

So what to think of this novel? I was delighted to realize that it was the very first appearance of Miss Marple, that ingenious “spinster sleuth” who starred in one of Christie’s detective serials. I didn’t know at first where this novel fit into Christie’s oeuvre<\/em>. All I knew was that it was the only one of her novels offered through Amazon’s free Kindle collection. Free is a great incentive to finally give something a go, eh? <\/p>\n

As for the story itself, it’s quite…comforting, actually (an odd description, to be sure, for a murder mystery!). Small village tale told in a compelling, lucid voice. Quietly ingenious characters and simple deductive reasoning from a quaint “heroine” of subdued charm and sharp reasoning. An exemplary example of storytelling from another time, another place. I imagine it would be considered dull or pointless to many today. A shame, though. I quite enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

I’m also still enjoying my Kindle experience (segue, ho!), and I particularly enjoyed the fact that I was able to go straight to Amazon’s Kindle section to learn more about Christie’s works immediately after finishing The Murder at the Vicarage<\/em> (even though it was almost midnight and I’d been in bed for almost an hour by that point). Very nice. <\/p>\n

What I don’t like is the fact that it seems that Amazon is slowly whittling away its free library. Whereas I was able to download this novel for free, Amazon has now once more listed it as a purchase-only offering. I can’t help but wonder how many other books they’ve shifted from their free section as the popularity of the Kindle continues to grow. Glad I went on that free spree right after I received this for my birfday!<\/p>\n

Final Verdict:<\/strong> Christie shall be staying on my Kindle. Perhaps soon enough I shall track down the next entry in Miss Marple’s adventures. Or maybe even…Poirot!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s finally happened, denizens. I am no longer an Agatha Christie virgin. It was bound to take place sooner or later. One simply cannot claim a love of literature without giving a go to all those “prime suspect” authors whose works continue to be highly revered by fans and critics of their respective genres. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[632,44,633,634],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}