REVIEW: The Blue Geranium

 The Blue Geranium
Author: Agatha Christie

The Blue Geranium is the 7th story in the Tuesday Night Club story arc, featuring Miss Marple. The Tuesday Night Club short stories, published in magazines from 1927-1931,  introduce Miss Marple as a character. The thirteen tales were gathered into book form in 1932 (The Thirteen Problems). 

The Tuesday Night Club includes Miss Marple, her nephew (a writer) and four friends (an actress, a clergyman, an attorney, and an artist). They meet on Tuesday nights to discuss unsolved or mysterious crimes. One member tells a story and the others try to guess the truth. The first six tales each feature one member telling their story....and the truth is revealed at the end. At the end of the sixth story, each club member had told their tale...so Christie had to change tactics to continue the story arc. The Blue Geranium was published 18 months after the sixth Tuesday Night Club story (published in the UK December 1929 in The Story-Teller Magazine with US publication January 1930 in Pictorial Review). The story opens with Colonel Arthur Bantry inviting four people to dinner at his home. He includes Miss Marple in the party because he hears she is good at solving mysteries. Bantry wants to see if she can solve a strange mystery involving an invalid woman and a psychic. 

I loved this story! It had a wonderful locked-room mystery vibe to it. Very classic. It's one of my favorites of the Tuesday Night Club stories so far. These stories are short, ranging from 10-20 pages. Published in magazines, these are minute-mystery sort of quick tales meant to introduce Miss Marple as a character. The short length means these stories don't have the complex plots, setting and characterizations of Christie's novels, but they do a great job of showing Miss Marple's keen understanding and wisdom. She might be a spinster who has spent her entire life in a small English village, but Miss Marple knows human nature. She notices everything. Nothing gets past Miss Marple! 

The Blue Geranium was adapted for television by the series Agatha Christie's Marple in its 5th season. The episode sticks pretty closely to the plot of the original story, but expands it to fill an almost 90 minute episode. 

Loving these stories! Up to now I had never read any of the Miss Marple short stories. These first tales are very short, but fun to read! I'm reading along in my hardback copy of Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories (Putnam, 1985) while listening to audio (The Thirteen Problems narrated by Joan Hickson who played Miss Marple on Agatha Christie's Marple from 1984-1992). Hickson does a wonderful job of reading (of course) and it's so much fun to hear the story in a voice I associate with Miss Marple. :) 

On to the next story -- The Companion!