Stephanie Cole – Carol's Notebook

Our story opens with Mrs. Dolly Bantry being woken up by a maid and told there's a dead body in the library. She, in turn, wakes her husband, Colonel Arthur Bantry, who takes a bit of convincing before he will go down and check for himself. Sure enough, there's a dead girl in the library, a stranger wearing a rather cheap dancing dress. Mrs. Bantry immediately calls Ms. Marple and states if there has to be a murder in her house, she intends to enjoy it. The two women end up heading to a nearby hotel, where one of the staff has disappeared. I enjoy Miss Marple. She's so observant and maybe a bit cynical. She allows people who don't know her well, to believe she's just a harmless, quiet older village lady when she is really quite shrewd and intelligent. She sees everything and bides her time, asking seemingly innocent questions and making seemingly absurd comparisons until she has...

Miss Marple is staying at the luxurious and old-fashioned Bertram's Hotel as a gift from her nephew, author Raymond West. She find several other interesting characters staying there, including the rather colorful Lady Bess Sedgwick, a dithering old Colonel and his pretty ward, Elvira Blake. The famous racing car driver, Ladislav, is also hanging around. All things considered, Miss Marple sees trouble coming. Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Davies had been investigating a string of large, successful robberies with little progress. Add in an absent-minded cleric and we have an interesting, twisty, if slow-moving mystery. I listened to the audio and the narrator did a great job with the variety of characters and kept the story moving along at an appropriate place. I wish I could go stay at Bertram's Hotel, or at least one like it was pretending to be. I think I need a vacation....

Narrator: Stephanie Cole

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie