4 Reasons Miss Marple is THE Queen of Amateur Sleuths

A few weeks ago I did a survey…

Sure, it wasn't exactly scientific, but after more than 100 responses to my question "Who's your favourite amateur sleuth?", I think we can safely say that Miss Marple is Queen of the Quizzes, Master of All Mysteries and the least amateur of all amateur sleuths.

And I'm not surprised.

Agatha Christie had already penned the perfect professional detective in Hercule Poirot (who appeared in her first book The Mysterious Affair at Styles), so it's no surprise that she got her amateur sleuth so spot-on. So how did she do it?

They're in it for love (not money)

There are a few core ingredients to a good amateur sleuth (AS). For starters, they really do need to be an amateur. They can't be a police officer or a detective or even a private eye (which is why Poirot does not make the list). They must be a layperson, someone incidental, someone who just happens upon mysteries and can't help but use their natural instinct for intrigue to get involved. But it must also be justifiable, reasonable, logical that they would get involved. Otherwise it's all a bit of a stretch.

That's why so many amateur sleuths are priests and doctors—people who naturally interact with the public and come across suspicious corpses.

Miss Marple is neither of these yet she ticks all the boxes, which brings me to another core ingredient:

They're nosey parkers

The best AS's are naturally nosey and Miss Marple is your classic nosey neighbour, the 'little ole biddy' next door who peeks through curtains and eavesdrops on gossip. It's no surprise she spots criminals sneaking about and overhears death plots. She's got a constant ear to the ground and knows everybody's business whether they know it or not. Which brings me to the next ingredient of a good AS.

They're invisible!

Well, perhaps not literally but it's hard to poke about when you're the centre of attention, which is why women of a certain age make terrific AS's (Jessica Fletcher anyone?). Invisible Woman Syndrome really does exist—just ask any woman (and some men, for that matter) over the age of 50 who have ever applied for a job or tried to order a drink at a busy bar. It's like you're not there! Which can be so frustrating—unless, of course, you're trying to solve a murder. Then you can use it to your advantage (mwahaha). 

They're disarming

Even when she does get noticed, Miss Marple comes across as sweet, harmless, even a little slow-witted. She's an 'elderly spinster' after all! Few people take her seriously and that is her superpower. Both cops and bad guys underestimate her, letting clues slip and being disarmed in her presence. Yet she's whip smart and playing them all! (It's a trick that works for pros like Vera Stanhope, Columbo and Monk.)  

And while there are plenty of AS's who disprove the rule—there's nothing invisible about Phryne Fisher, while Nancy Drew uses youth to her advantage—I still believe nobody does it better than Jane Marple. 

And, it seems, most of you do, too.

Meet MY Bookish Sleuths!

My Agatha Christie Book Club series features a club full of passionate amateur sleuths who clearly love a good mystery—hence the reason they've joined this particular book club—and each bring their own ingredients to the mix. 

Club founder Alicia Finlay has a rather eerie way of looking at the world, seeing the worst in everything and suspicious of everyone, which really helps when it comes to crime, while her stunning sister Lynette and classy club member Claire have a splash of Miss Fisher about them. They often use their 'feminine wiles' to flirt their way to the truth. 

Yet it's probably librarian Missy who most resembles Miss Marple. Missy might be young but she does waffle on, and can seem ditzy and airheaded. The truth is she's as switched on as Miss Marple and people underestimate her at their peril.

There's also a fastidious Poirot-style character in Perry and, one of Christie's achetypes, a dashing doctor with a penchant for poison—Anders.

Want to meet the whole gang and see how they got together? You can grab the first eBook and paperback in the series now from any good online bookstore, or at Amazon here.

Happy reading, everyone, and happy amateur sleuthing, too. Because when you think about it, we're ALL amateur sleuths!

xo Christina

Teens and murder mysteries - do they mix?

The question today is: should I let my 15-year-old teenage niece read the murder mysteries I have written? She's just been given a Kindle for her birthday and is keen to download my books.

But are they appropriate? Is she too young?

Often classified as 'cozies', my crime novels actually have a little bit of offensive language in them (see blog below if you're wondering why) but other than that they really are quite cozy for adult crime novels. There's no sex of any kind, much to some reader's dismay, and the crime is relatively whitewashed. There's no major blood and gore, no sinister serial killers or, at least, the type that would keep you up at night (and by that I mean in a bad way), and no scalpel-happy pathologists slicing into corpses. They're just plot-driven puzzles, really, with a dead body at their core.

And yet I hesitate...

Before I explain why, allow me to go into a little background first.

My mystery history 
Like many crime writers, I grew up on a steady diet of mystery novels, from Enid Blyton's The Famous Five to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. From an early age I binge-read every mystery book I could get my greedy paws on. And I sourced my books from far and wide—from the sandy shelves of my local library (just metres from a sparkling beach that just couldn't compete) to the depths of neighbours' bookshelves. Even my friends' parents' bedside tables were not safe when I was sleeping over.

As a tweenie, I read my share of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, but my particular favourite was The Three Investigators, a lesser-known series featuring three gutsy boys who solved a range of crimes, mostly involving stolen jewels or missing pirate treasure. Arrrgh! And they did it from an exotic-sounding bunker in one of the boy's junk yards. (In retrospect, the bunker must have been a dump, and a stinky, leaky one at that. But why let reality get in the way?)

From diamond heists, I graduated to murder mysteries, as I guess most mystery-lovers do. I mean, what more pressing mystery is there than 'Who killed someone or other?' But no children's authors were writing murder mysteries of any kind. Of course they weren't. This was the 1970s, after all. And so I discovered Agatha Christie and never really looked back.

I'm looking back now and I don't believe I was any younger than my neice is today when I was captivated by my first fictitious murder. In fact, I'd bet my knickerbockers and shoulder pads I was around age 13 when I picked up Christie's Evil Under the Sun.

So why hesitate to let Lili, my lovely niece, read, say, A Plot to Die For, my homage to that very novel? In my story, I have a group of well-to-do types lolling at a luxury boutique hotel when, shock horror, a murder is committed. And, as is the way with murder mysteries, it must promptly be solved by my friendly visiting Ghostwriter, Roxy Parker (think Miss Marple but a lot younger, cooler and in way better clothes).

And still I hesitate...

Is it the occasional profanity in my books? 

It can't really be that, can it? I mean, surely Lili would hear much, much worse every day on the bus, in the school yard, on her family television set. Kids today are so much savvier and more blasé than we ever were. Swear words are one thing, blasphemy wouldn't even trigger an eyebrow raise. She may not even have heard of the term, so innocuous is it in modern Australian society.

Is it the fear that she will see me in a different light? 

I'm not the straightest Aunt she has, or even the sweetest by anyone's measure, but I'm also pretty sure, at this stage anyway, that Lili doesn't consider me a madwoman whose daily job involves conjuring up weird and wonderful ways to bump people off. Does she need to know I've imagined slitting someone's throat? That I've delighted in whacking a sleazy husband over the head with his treasured golf club? That it's all in a day's work for me; that my mind is that dark? Will she start to look at me sideways next time I stop to visit, and maybe even remove the sharp knives from the kitchen drawer?

Probably not, that's a bit extreme, but nonetheless it gets you thinking.

Perhaps I'm just scared I won't live up?

It's one thing to have strangers dislike your novels, it's quite another to be on the nose with those you, well, know. Even amongst grown-ups, I have always hesitated to recommend my stuff to loved ones, or  distant friends for that matter. If they read it and despise it or, worse, get bored and stop halfway (is there any worse fate for a writer?) will that sully our relationship? Will that cloud their judgement somehow?

Forget about the knives, will Lili struggle to look me in the eye next time I come to visit?

These are all vainglorious questions, pure self-indulgence, I know that. But they're questions I ask myself each and every time I publish a new novel. And now that a beloved niece wants to read one, they're questions I wish I could answer.

Instead, I guess I'll let her decide for herself. Tell her to do as most of my readers do, and check out the synopsis, read the sample chapter and decide for herself.

But I'll also quickly add: if she decides my books are too rude, or boring or, like, total crap, please don't tell me. I don't think I want to know.

Happy (age-appropriate) reading everyone.
xo Christina