The Murder at the Vicarage

Joan Hickson the consumate Miss Marple

A Classic Agatha Christie story with the wonderful narration from the consumate Miss Marple, Joan Hickson. If you want an escape from the every day drudgery then this is a must. Thoroughly recommended.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Wonderful introduction to Marple

The fluffy old village cat shows her claws in this wonderful village mystery. Beautifully read by the incomparable Joan Hickson; you get a lovely sense of the cosy village atmosphere, and she gives Miss Marple just the right degree of deceptive vagueness when she finally unveils the solution to the baffled police force.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

wonderful narration!

I've seen this many times on tv so I know the story well (including the whodunnit!) but I just loved this audiobook and am sorry to be finished. Joan Hickson was my favourite Miss Marple on tv and her narration here is just perfect.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Enter Miss Marple...

Colonel Protheroe is one of those men nobody likes, so when he’s shot dead in the vicar’s study the list of suspects is long. He’s a bullying husband to his second wife, Anne, an overbearing father to Lettice, his daughter, a tough magistrate meting out harsh judgement to the criminal classes of St Mary Mead, antagonistic to anyone whose morals he deems to be lax, and an exacting churchwarden, always on the look out for wrongdoing amongst the church officials and congregation. In fact, it was just earlier that very day that the vicar had remarked that anyone who murdered the colonel would be doing the world a favour!

The police are suitably baffled, but fortunately there’s an old lady in the village, with an observant eye, an ear for gossip, an astute mind and an unerring instinct for recognising evil... Miss Marple! Relying on her lifetime’s store of village parallels, she will sniff out the real guilty party while the police are still chasing wild geese all over the village green...

The narrator in the book is the vicar, Leonard Clement, and he and his younger and rather irreverent wife, Griselda, give the book much of its humour and warmth. It’s Miss Marple’s first appearance and she’s more dithery and less prone to Delphic pronouncements than she becomes in some of the later novels. This is her as I always picture her (I suspect it may have been the first one I read) and is the main reason I never think the actresses who play her do so with quite enough of a fluttery old woman feel to the character. Here, she’s a village gossip who watches the ongoings in the village through her binoculars under the pretence of being an avid bird-watcher, and the Clements joke about her as a nosy busy-body, always prying into the lives of her neighbours. As the book goes on, Leonard finds himself investigating alongside her, and gradually gains an appreciation of the intelligence and strength of character underneath this outward appearance, as does the reader.

The plot is very good, with as much emphasis on alibis and timings as on motives. Because Colonel Protheroe was such an unpleasant man, the reader (like the characters) doesn’t have to waste much time grieving for him. The suspects range from the sympathetic to the mysterious, from the wicked to the pitiable, as Christie gradually feeds their motives out to us. She shows the village as a place where no secret can be kept for long from the little army of elderly ladies who fill their lives excitedly gossiping about their neighbours. But while some of them are always getting the wrong end of the stick and spreading false stories, Miss Marple has the insight to see through to the truth.

Inspector Slack also makes his first appearance in this book – a dedicated officer, but one who is always jumping to hasty conclusions. He never stops to listen to people properly, and is brash and a bit bullying, and oh, so dismissive of our elderly heroine! A mistake, as he will discover when she reveals all towards the end!

I love this book and have read it about a million times. So it was a real pleasure to listen to the incomparable Joan Hickson’s narration of it this time – I find listening to Christie on audiobook brings back a feeling of freshness even to the ones I know more or less off by heart. Hickson gets the warmth and humour of the books, and gives each character a subtly distinctive voice, though never letting the acting get in the way of the narration. She does the working-class people particularly well, managing to avoid the slight feeling of caricaturing that can come through to modern readers in the books.

Great stuff!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Joan Hickson the perfect Miss Marple

Would you consider the audio edition of The Murder at the Vicarage to be better than the print version?

Yes. It really takes you right into the heart of the story. You're really there.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Murder at the Vicarage?

All of it !

Which character – as performed by Joan Hickson – was your favourite?

Always Miss Marple

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes if I'd had the time

Any additional comments?

I will listen to this again it was so enjoyable.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Dreadful. Can’t listen to it

Joan Hickson is my favourite tv Miss Marple, but my goodness this is dreadful. I’d never appreciated how high pitched her voice is - like fingernails on glass. She isn’t a very clear speaker either. I’m going to return this. I’ve listened to 20 minutes and I can’t take any more.

I also have to question the wisdom of having a female read a book where the narrating character is male... makes it even harder to listen to.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Joan Hickson is a joy

Such an engaging little story; a lovely way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon trying to guess who did it. Perfect for a little escapism. I love Miss Marple too and Joan Hickson is the perfect narrator. She was and always will be the best Miss Marple in my opinion.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

The ONLY Miss Marple

Just as David Suchet IS Poirot, Joan Hickson IS Miss Marple, physically and vocally as well as beibg a consumate actress. We are very lucky to have these recordings to remind us how wonderful she was. Even though this is not my favourite Marple Mystery, her narration means I enjoy it just the same as the Christies with a more complex plot.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

I love Joan Hickson

If you loved the BBC adaptations with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple then you will love this reading. Her voice is perfect.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Superb

No one can replace Joan Hickson as Miss Marple - perfect understanding and delivery of Agatha Christie's work.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful