Fans of Miss Marple, take notice! As the Christie estate authorized author Sophie Hannah to write new Poirot mysteries, they have now authorized a new novel featuring the elderly spinster sleuth. Lucy Foley’s own bestselling books (The Guest List, The Paris Apartment, et al) make her the perfect author to bring readers her rich storyteling in Murder at the Alpine Hotel. As a huge Christie aficionado, she makes certain to adhere to the spirit of the Miss Marple we know and love, creating a unique bridge from the original novels to engage us with new stories.
Chrisite fans will appreciate Foley including Mrs. Dolly Bantry (1942’s The Body in the Library) as Miss Marple’s traveling companion when the two women, along with Dolly’s paid companion, travel in the winter of 1950 to the Swiss Alps to the glamorous resort that will give them a winter holiday amongst an interesting mix of guests.
But the holiday feel is soon jeopardized when a huge snowstorm isolates them in the Grand Alpine Hotel, just as a guest’s dead body is found inside the hotel’s mountain gondola. A sealed environment with a cast of suspects makes the perfect setting for the investigation Miss Marple carefully undertakes after volunteering to assist a French detective staying at the resort.
Soon several guests who were associated with the dead man come under the careful scrutiny of Miss Marple as more bodies pile up, with a most surprising climax that has several twists at the end. The post-war setting has its tendrils in the plot, and Foley gets the feel of the time in this European setting just right.
There are scenes from several suspects’ points of view, adding psychological depth to the story that is Foley’s specialty of strong women. There are nuns, a Hollywood actress, an MP and his wife, as well as an Irish Wolfhound, all bound up in a morally complex plot.
At first Miss Marple appears frail and hesitates to become involved, but once she’s in full swing, knitting away while bringing her comparisons of village life to the forefront, the beloved character rises again with her acute observations, and we are satisfied and happy to read the first Miss Marple mystery since Christie’s Sleeping Murder in 1976, the same year Christie died. The British Library is mounting an exhibit on the 50th anniversary of her death. Christie’s books are still outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.
Nothing misses the eagle eye of Miss Marple. Readers will agree when Foley has Dolly Bantry tell Marple, “Jane . . . I hope you won’t mind my saying this, but it is almost uncanny, your ability to think yourself into the mind of a murderer.”
Delicious and entertaining, grab this milestone book now.
