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Murder at the Vicarage is the first Miss Marple book to be written and published. Within the sleepy small village of St Mary Mead murder arrives when Colonel Protheroe, a much disliked prominent member of society is found dead in the study of Vicar, Reverend Clement’s study. Told through a first person narrative of Rev Clement, we observe and bumble along with the vicar the progress of the investigation to discovery of the murderer(s) through the deductions of Miss Marple.

A slow but delightful story in which we view how Miss Marple’s superior powers of deductive reasoning is initially overlooked by the police, but not the reader as the vicar often draws our attention to his knowledge of Miss Marple’s sleuthing abilities. This affords the reader some superiority over the police as we have some insider information to not judge a person (old woman) by their appearance.

Within the story I particular enjoyed the way today’s readers able to draw parallels between our society and human behaviour and that witnessed and described by Miss Marple in Post War Britain. I also enjoyed the subtle comedy which winds throughout the story in Rev Clement’s storytelling. Overall reading this book had a been lovely way to spend to couple of days.