I’m taking part in Read Christie 2021 this year and the prompt for January is ‘a story set in a grand house’. Christie wrote lots of those and I’ve already read some of them, including The Hollow, which is the one the challenge hosts have chosen as the book of the month. Fortunately, they provided a list of alternative suggestions and I decided on the 1942 Miss Marple mystery, The Body in the Library, as my January book for the challenge.
The ‘grand house’ in this novel is Gossington Hall in St Mary Mead, home to Dolly Bantry and her husband, Colonel Arthur Bantry. When the Bantrys are woken by the maid early one morning to be told that a dead body has been found on their library floor – the body of a blonde young woman in a white satin evening dress and silver shoes – suspicion immediately falls on the Colonel. But the Colonel insists that he has never seen the woman before and there is no evidence to connect him with the murder, so attention then turns to other suspects.
Could the culprit be Basil Blake, a newcomer to the village who is involved in the film industry and whose lifestyle has made him the centre of village gossip? What about George Bartlett, a guest at the nearby Majestic Hotel where the murdered woman, Ruby Keene, had worked as a dancer? Or maybe it’s Conway Jefferson, who had been planning to adopt Ruby as his daughter after losing his wife and children in a plane crash several years earlier. As the police begin to investigate, Dolly Bantry enlists the help of her friend Miss Marple because she’s ‘very good at murders’. And Miss Marple once again proves just how good she is at murders by using her usual blend of observation and knowledge of human nature to piece together the clues and solve the crime.
The Body in the Library is a short, quick read and like most of Christie’s novels it is cleverly constructed so that most of the information you need to be able to solve the mystery is there from the beginning, but very easy to overlook. As Miss Marple says once or twice, most people are too trusting and too ready to believe everything they are told; even bearing that in mind, I still didn’t suspect the right person and the murderer had me completely fooled! The murderer also had the police fooled – although we don’t actually see very much of Miss Marple in this novel and the focus is more on the police investigation, she is the one who provides the necessary insights that lead to the identification of the killer.
In the foreword to the novel, Christie states that the ‘body in the library’ story is a cliché of detective fiction and that she wrote this book as a variation on that cliché: ‘The library in question must be a highly orthodox and conventional library. The body, on the other hand, must be a wildly improbable and highly sensational body.’ Well, the library at Gossington Hall certainly sounds conventional and the body caused plenty of sensation in St Mary Mead, so I think Christie achieved what she set out to do! This has not become a favourite Marple novel but I did enjoy it and am looking forward to reading February’s book for the challenge.
She Reads Novels 
One of my favourite Christies – overdue a revisit, I think!
There are others I’ve enjoyed more – but yes, this is a good one!
That’s a fun Christie to read for this challenge.
Yes, I thought so!
What raises this one for me is Dolly Bantry – one of my favourite occasional characters in the books. It doesn’t quite make my top favourite list either, though, although I love the actual idea of the unexpected body turning up in the library!
Yes, Dolly Bantry is a great character. It was good to see her again in this book!
I seem to remember finding this one a bit far-fetched, and it is not one of my absolute favorites either, but it was still fun, and a good way to spend a couple of hours reading.
I thought the ending seemed a bit contrived and I felt that the murderer had gone to a lot of unnecessary trouble! It was definitely a fun read, though!
I haven’t read any Christie for ages and love the sound of this challenge. Dolly Bantry is one of my favourite literary characters of all!
I love taking part in this challenge every year because the monthly prompts encourage me to pick up Christie novels I wouldn’t necessarily have been drawn to myself. And yes, Dolly Bantry is great!
I thought this was a fun one. Not one of my favorites, but still enjoyable. 🙂
Yes, I really enjoyed this one!
I liked learning the the “body in the library” is a cliche of detective fiction!
Yes, apparently it is, although I can’t really think of any others I’ve read.
A good starting point for anyone new to Christie I think. I read this last year, but seen it countless times on TV.
Yes, I think this would be a good introduction to Christie and Miss Marple.
Glad to hear your Read Christie 2021 has got off to a good, if not great, start. 🙂 I am shamefully still to read any of Christie’s Marple mysteries! 🙄
I hope you have a chance to read your first Marple mystery soon. I think I slightly prefer the Poirot books, but the Marple ones are great too.