Early on, their enigmatic housekeeper shocks Inspector Neele with her frank summary of her employers as “odious and unpleasant” unfortunately with some exceptions they’re not particularly interesting or engaging either. I’m not sure who to blame: the capable but bland Inspector Neele whose perspective dominates much of the book, or the Fortescue family. I was happy for Miss Marple to make an appearance and bring along some heart, righteous indignation and personal investment, because I can’t say that the story was holding my attention all that much beforehand. She also figures out that all those perverse little details are about the murderer following Sing a Song of Sixpence, a well-known nursery rhyme. Inspector Neele, the investigator in charge, quickly recognises her as a useful ally who might be more successful at extracting information from the members of the Fortescue household than the police. Though she looks like the world’s least likely avenging fury, the old lady is determined that this wickedness must be punished. So how does an unassuming old lady from a small sleepy village enter this triple murder? Well it turns out that unfortunate Gladys had learned the art of cleaning and serving while at Miss Marple’s home, and her death has affected Miss Marple deeply – especially the murderer’s cruel and contemptuous final touch with the clothespin. A few hours later, a maid named Gladys is found strangled in the yard, with the killer putting a clothespin on her nose.
1, but they’re dumbfounded when she too is found dead after drinking tea laced with cyanide.
The police quickly latch on to Fortescue’s much younger wife as the suspect no. Bizarrely, the pockets of the dead man contain grains of rye, an outlandish detail that no one can satisfactorily explain. It’s quickly established however that his death had nothing to do with the tea, but deliberate poisoning while breakfasting in the company of his family earlier that morning. The novel begins at the office of an unscrupulous financial tycoon Rex Fortescue, who expires at the end of the chapter soon after drinking tea prepared by his glamorous blonde secretary. On the whole though, the book just wasn’t as satisfying as some of its parts. This Miss Marple novel has many Christie tropes that I usually find very entertaining, among them a bickering family where everyone has a motive to bump off the detestable patriarch in charge, and murders that follow a nursery rhyme.
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