Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott. Another favorite in keeping with her traditions was “The Mystery of the Acid Soil” by Kate Mosse, which begins with a train ride to visit a childhood friend. In Elly Griffiths’ Murder at the Villa Rosa, Miss Marple’s final trip abroad in Marple sees her enjoying a holiday on the Amalfi Coast, once again courtesy of Raymond West. In a hotel setup reminiscent of that seen in several Christie novels, she finds herself rubbing shoulders with an eclectic bunch of fellow guests, including a blowhard colonel, a glamourous American, a mysterious Italian couple and a writer who might just have murder in mind. I recently read The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie, and it has sparked my interest in Agatha Christie. Haven't read her in years, though I do intend to, but I did binge watch the Miss Marple series. Loved them. Anyway when I saw this book it fit right in, so I just had to read. The Unraveling" by Natalie Haynes (4.5 stars)-Honestly this reads very well and it reads like a short story that Agatha Christie would have written. The only reason why I gave this one half a star is the solution was pretty obvious and I think Christie would have done more dis-direction if she had written this.

My favourite story was Miss Marples Christmas by Ruth Ware. It had all the elements of the classic tales, with the added bonus of Christmas. It was always going to be difficult to sum up a book with many individual authors, some of which are firm favourites. I am happy to say that I enjoyed most of them, 'The Second Murder At The Vicarage' by Val McDermid, 'The Mystery of the Acid Soil' by Kate Mosse and 'The Disappearance' by Leigh Bardugo in particular...these were all lifted by superb narration too. There were always going to be a few I didn't enjoy.She was the lead writer for Perplex City, an Alternate reality game, at Mind Candy from 2004 through June, 2007.[1] The Open Mind" by Naomi Alderman (2 stars)-I did not like this at all. It takes place in what, 1970 I think. The whole story just read off to me I think. Probably because I imagine in my head this takes place after "Nemesis" and it just doesn't read as a Miss Marple heading towards the end of her life. A brave attempt to write Miss Marple stories to a similar level of ability but this is a very good effort. I would enjoy reading a similar book featuring one of Agatha Christie’s other characters Hercule Poirot. Evil in Small Places" by Lucy Foley (5 stars)-Honestly this was probably one of the better stories in the collection. Foley has obviously read Dame Agatha Christie before. She fundamentally gets the character. Unfortunately some of the other authors do not. This story follows Miss Marple after she goes to visit with an old school friend. After finding the newest choir mistress dead, Miss Marple realizes who did it and why. Murder at the Villa Rose" by Elly Griffths (1 star)-No. It just went on and on and this is something that I can see swapping out Poirot for Miss Marple. It just doesn't even read as a Miss Marple story at all. And the ending was eyeroll inducing.

I have always enjoyed Agatha Christie books as well as the many films and television series over the years. I have read and enjoyed all of her novels so it is pleasing to read other popular authors pay a huge compliment to her memory by writing a Miss Marple story themselves. This made fascinating reading and was very entertaining throughout, I particularly enjoyed the stories by Ruth Ware, Elly Griffiths and Kate Mosse.Jean Kwok is the New York Timesand internationally bestselling author of Girl in Translationand Mambo in Chinatown. Her work has been published in twenty countries and is taught in universities, colleges, and high schools across the world. She has been selected for numerous honors, including the American Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award and theSunday TimesEFG Short Story Award international shortlist. She received her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and earned an MFA from Columbia University. She is fluent in Chinese, Dutch, and English, and divides her time between the Netherlands and New York City Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Agatha Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by twelve Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time. (goodreads) My Review

I got this novel from my local library ebooks, it is twelve short stories about Miss Maple by twelve different authors. Each story is different with interesting well developed characters lots of action and misdirection leading to each conclusion. As with all multiply book sets some you like better than others. I would highly recommend this novel too fans of Agatha Christie and readers of mystery novels 👍🔰. 2023 👒😀😡🏡 Introducing her to a whole new generation of readers, each author reimagines Agatha Christie's Marple through their lens. The Mystery of the Acid Soil was good, although not as good as the other 3 I've mentioned. It seemed a little silly, although it was very well constructed as a story, with believable characters.Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Agatha Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage. It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by twelve Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time. We know that Christie's Jane Marple has travelled to the Caribbean, for example, but she didn't really like the 'foreigness' and only really made sense of it by reducing people to facsimiles of personages in St Mary's Mead - to therefore project her happily wandering around Manhattan, sailing to Hong Kong and holidaying in Italy rather misses the point. Even on home ground, the idea of Miss Marple dining at the high table of an Oxford college doesn't really fit.

The bad news, of course, is that they're not stories penned by Agatha Christie herself. Sadly, it's been more than 45 years since Agatha Christie passed – meaning that unless somebody unearths a treasure trove of unpublished works, we're not getting any more originals. Overall, I was disappointed by the stories and the narrators. Some of the good narrators (Ramon Tikaram) were saddled with poor stories and some narrators spoiled what may have been good stories. Imogen Stubbs sounds like she arrived at the recording studio in a rush and was still trying to catch her breath. Alison Steadman was almost unbearable. She has such a shrill, screechy, histrionic voice. It was very unpleasant to listen to. I understand she's a "name" and so was probably meant to be a draw, but for me she was terrible.Review of last story--FYI, Miss Marple wouldn't be okay with murder, no matter who did it. I think the last story totally mixed up Marple with Poirot.