Watch out when Miss Marple, part way through an Agatha Christie novel, muses over her breakfast newspaper and notes, randomly, three headlines. One of those headlines will become a clue. Bless Dame Agatha's heart! We can depend on her. "The Murder at the Vicarage" lacks this trademark, for Jane Marple was making her first appearance and she, like Dame Agatha, had not yet got the hang of it. She makes her entry spouting gossip; later she knew better and kept such things to herself, only pursing her lips when all others, including the police, were exclaiming over a red herring.
Dame Agatha writes to a pattern. (Let's not say "formula" which lacks charm, a quality she oozes, even if somewhat mustily .
In the canon of mystery writers she takes a place well below Ruth Rendell, whose every book is different. But do we tire of "Cinderella?" of "Romeo and Juliet"? Should we chastise our little children when they insist at bedtime on every syllable in the story?
Once a man listed the books he would select for a shipwreck on a desert island. One was "Anything by Agatha Christie" because as soon as he finished the last page he would forget "whodunit" and be able to start all over. A form of immortality.
