Miss Marple's Final Cases

This was perfectly what I needed right now. Short and sweet cases with all the comforting quality of Agatha Christie's writing. Some of them have pretty obvious solutions, others not so, while still others aren't even mysteries at all but supernatural short stories hidden within this collection, and have absolutely nothing to do with Miss Marple.

Christie just had such an accessible, comforting style of writing that I can't find in many other writers, even her contemporaries. She might be writing about death and murder and poison and assault, but everything just fills so breezy and like a cozy day in the English countryside. Her stories are also generally concise and to-the-point: everything you need to know is on the page, but it isn't in your face either so you need to be particularly looking out for it.

Of the actual mystery stories in this collection, perhaps The Tape-Measure Murder or Sanctuary were my favourites. The rest were fine but fairly standard. If you've read enough Christie, you probably could make a fairly good guess at the solutions. The Tape-Measure Murder and Sanctuary had a bit more of an oomph to them, having more complex backstories or a standout feature of the murder.

But the stories that I might actually remember most in this collection are the two non-mystery stories: The Dressmaker's Doll and In A Glass Darkly. I was caught off guard at first by The Dressmaker's Doll because I expected a mystery to be behind all of this, but then imagine my surprise when no mystery happened and there really was some kind of supernatural phenomenon happening here. In A Glass Darkly toned down the supernatural aspect a bit, but it was still pretty engaging. These made me keen to try out Christie's non-mystery novels which I have been meaning to read for years and years and still haven't picked up.

Overall, I rated this at 4 stars mainly because they were just all so darn comforting and enjoyable to read. Definitely a great filler book when you're in a bit of a reading slump or when you just want something a bit light-hearted but engaging and enjoyable.

Creepy doll moves in
crime solved from a cozy chair
pranks will get you killed.

3.5/5