Abandoned by Booklikes

"The Body in the Library." When retired Colonel Arthur Bantry is wakened he and his wife Dolly are told there is a dead body in the library. They investigate and find a dead young woman in his library at Gossington Hall. The police show up and everyone starts to suspect Colonel Bantry in being behind the murder. Even though many will not come out and accuse him, the appearance of impropriety is enough to cause the Bantry's to lose their place in society.

Dolly calls up her old friend Jane Marple to help. What is nice is that Dolly calls back to Miss Marple solving all of the mysteries put before her in "Thirteen Problems." So you have one character who is aware that though Jane looks like a spinsterish older woman who is called "Victorian" by her pain in the butt nephew, she could put Sherlock Holmes to shame. 

What I loved about this book is that it takes you down a really long winding path to get to who is the dead girl and why was she placed in the colonel's library. Eventually the dead girl is revealed to be a missing dancer named Ruby Keene from the nearby Majestic Hotel. We have Miss Marple and Dolly going off to figure out, who at the hotel could possibly want Ruby dead. 

We get introduced to a lot of memorable characters in this one and honestly I have to say that I had no idea who did what to who and when all is revealed I went, oh that's so clever. I recall watching the most recent BBC adaptation of this one and wish that they had left it alone. I liked the original ending and thought that the latest Miss Marple's tried to be too sensational with things. 

I did notice in this one and the next Miss Marple, Miss Marple likes to set a lot of traps. So there is one difference between her and Poirot. Poirot was all about telling a room full of people who the guilty party was, Miss Marple always brought in the police to ensure a confession. So she was like Brenda Leigh Johnson in the Closer.