The Moving Finger (Miss Marple Mysteries) (Paperback)

by Agatha Christie (Author) "and nurses, that I was going to be condemned to lie on my back all my life..." (more)
Key Phrases: currant loaf, anonymous letter writer, nursery governess, Dane Calthrop, Miss Marple, Elsie Holland (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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Swift-moving and highly original. -- New York Times

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Swift-moving and highly original. (New York Times)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Signet (November 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451201167
• ISBN-13: 978-0451201164
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #207,835 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 4 in The Miss Marple Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Malicious Mail, Murder, Mayhem, and Miss Marple, March 14, 2001

By	Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This story is told by Jerry Burton, an RAF flyer recovering from a crash. He has been sent to the village of Lymstock to get rest and quiet. Accompanied by his sister Joanna, Jerry soon finds that all is not as peaceful as he might have hoped. A series of poison pen letters detailing the explicit and often illicit facts of the residents' lives is causing quite a stir. The fear escalates when an apparent suicide is followed by a murder. With so much wickedness abounding, the vicar's wife calls in her old friend Jane Marple, whom she considers an expert on wickedness in village life.

This book is notable for its excellent characterizations. From the community-minded doctor's sister, to the charming spinster who rents the Burtons her home, to the dazzling governess of the lawyer's young boys, Mrs. Christie gives us a village filled with quirky and interesting people. Most notable is Megan Hunter, perhaps her finest young girl protagonist, who is transformed from the dowdy stepdaughter to an exquisite Cinderella.

The narrative style is light and entertaining, the romance sweet, and the murder quite deadly in this fun and always ingenuous offering from the mistress of mystery.

Mrs. Christie herself recalls this story in her autobiography as a personal favorite that has stood the test of time. As charming as it no doubt was when first published in 1943, The Moving Finger is a most satisfying read.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Agatha Christie's Psychology of Evil, August 3, 2002

By	cdset "cdset" (Saylorsburg, PA United States) - See all my reviews

In addition to the delights one gleans from Christie's deft, skillful plotting, incisive wit, and rich characterizations, the true strength of "The Moving Finger" is Christie's examination of evil underneath the pristine surface. This "wickedness" lies not only beneath the beautiful exteriors of the sleepy village, but also beneath the shiny faces of its inhabitants.

Christie is quite adept at communicating the "atmosphere that seemed tinged with evil." When confronted with the distressing and distasteful poison pen letters appearing in the village, one of the characters exclaims, "Such a peaceful smiling happy countryside-and down underneath something evil....It's full of festering poison and it looks as peaceful and innocent as the Garden of Eden..." In addition, Christie recognizes the dark side of human nature, and that it is often extremely difficult to tell what people are really like beneath their poilte behavior. "I'm beginning to realize how little I really know about anyone...In everybody's life there are hidden chapters which they hope may never be known..."

Christie makes it clear, however, that this evil is not a supernatural phenomenon divorced from human intervention in a particulary perceptive and profound passage, "There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will...God doesn't really need to punish us...We're so very busy punishing ourselves..." And although "it isn't very pleasant to look upon the fellow creatures one meets as possible criminal lunatics," Christie takes a realistically pessimistic view of human nature and a depicts a village filled with "gossiping, whispering women" and "selfish, grasping natures."

"The Moving Finger" is an absorbing account of a sociopath. "Such apparently unlikely people do the most fantastic things." Christie reminds us that the most horrifying evil usually comes from the most unlikely source- seemingly upright, normal people who are hiding the most unfathonable and terrifying wickedness. "The Moving Finger" is one of her most skillfull and insightful productions.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars cosy village atmosphere and characters, November 19, 2002

By	John Austin "[e-mail]" (Kangaroo Ground, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Moving Finger (Audio Cassette)

In a forward Agatha Christie provided for a reprint of this book, she wrote of the pleasure it was to tackle one of the classic themes, and of the great pleasure she found in writing this book with its "cosy village atmosphere and characters".

The classic theme here is the phenomenon of the Poison Pen. The book is one of her shorter mysteries but one of the most cunningly devised. Adept at constructing puzzles, she opts for presenting this one as a first person narrative. The narrator is a young man recuperating from a flying accident, told by his doctor that he must "go and live in the country and lead the life of a vegetable for at least six months". With his sister he rents a cottage in a small English village "of no importance whatsoever".

Accordingly, when the poison pen letters begin circulating, it is this narrator, a stranger to the village, who decribes things as he sees them, retails all the local gossip, and reports everyone's suspicions about the writer of the letters. A murder and an apparent suicide follow, and we read of the efforts of the local police to investigate.

Miss Marple thus is introduced late in the book and, of course, she proves better at solving the mystery than everybody else. You will be an astute and alert reader if you discover whodunit before Miss Marple reveals all.