REVIEW: The Thumb Mark of St Peter

 The Thumb Mark of St Peter
Author: Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie has been my favorite author since I read my first Hercule Poirot story at age 9. In all those years though I never read any of Christie's short stories. Earlier this year I read though the first short cases of Hercule Poirot....and now I'm reading the first cases of Miss Marple. The stories are quite short, most ranging from 14-20 pages. These tales were printed in fiction and detective magazines before Christie published her first books featuring her classic characters. 

The first few tales feature Miss Marple and five friends gathering on Tuesday nights to share tales of unsolved or strange mysteries. One member of the Tuesday Night Club shares a story, and the others try to figure out the truth. The members are Miss Marple, her nephew, a lawyer, an artist, a clergyman and a writer. In this 6th story, it's finally Miss Marple's turn to tell a story! She tells a tale about a woman suspected of poisoning her husband. The evidence is pretty damning....but did her niece Mabel kill her husband or was she only guilty of marrying the wrong man?

This story was first published in The Royal Magazine in May 1928 (UK) and Detective Story Magazine that July (US). It was later included in the story collection The Thirteen Problems, published in 1932. This story was not adapted for television on its own, but the show Agatha Christie's Marple had an episode based on another story, Greenshaw's Folly, and the plot for this short tale was also included in the episode. 

Interesting story....and I had to smile as Christie went into a discussion about poisons and their effects. I love golden age mysteries....someone always slipping arsenic or some chemical into people's tea or dinner. :) Many of the murders in Christie's books (In her 66 novels, 30 characters met their doom via poison) involve poison, chemicals or an overdose of some sort. Christie worked as an apothecary's assistant during World War I, so I'm sure she picked up quite a bit of knowledge about chemicals, poisons and various drugs. 

This is the sixth and final story that happens at a regular meeting of the Tuesday night club. The characters appear in several more stories...so I'm anxious to find out what other mysteries they try to work out! 

I had to look up the reference used in the title: Thumb Mark of St Peter. It refers to a black mark above the fin of a haddock fish (and other fish as well that have dark spots on their sides like the John Dory fish). Legend has it that the fish got that mark from St Peter. As Peter was fishing and touched the fish, it left the mark of his thumbprint on the sides of them all. Cool story! 

I usually listen to audio while reading these stories. I like a proper accent (narrators do a much better job of an English accent than I can concoct in my imagination), and I get the proper pronunciation of names, places and any foreign words. But unfortunately I could not find audio for this story....I read it myself from my old hardback copy of Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories (Putnam, 1985). Moving on to the next story -- The Blue Geranium. I do have audio for this one!