This is the quote that I believe inspired THE MOVING FINGER (1942), one of Dame Christie's most original novels. This one I would rank up with THE PALE HORSE (1961), also featuring Mr. and Mrs. Dane Calthrop, along with other characters from Poirot novels.
When "poison-pen" letters accusing the recipients of secret sexual activity awaken the little backwater village of Lymstock, Jerry Burton, recovering from a plane crash, his sister, Joanna, and Miss Jane Marple (though she does not show up till much later, which is why I don't really consider this a Miss Marple novel), a friend of Mrs. Dane Calthrop, must uncover the writer's identity when one recipient commits suicide. A second death is soon to follow, and this time it's murder.
This is, in my opinion, one of her best Miss Marple novels, next to NEMESIS (1971), my favorite.


cosy village atmosphere and characters   November 20, 2002
 22 out of 22 found this review helpful

In a forward Agatha Christie provided for a reprint of this book, she wrote of the pleasure it was to tackle one of the classic themes, and of the great pleasure she found in writing this book with its "cosy village atmosphere and characters".

The classic theme here is the phenomenon of the Poison Pen. The book is one of her shorter mysteries but one of the most cunningly devised. Adept at constructing puzzles, she opts for presenting this one as a first person narrative. The narrator is a young man recuperating from a flying accident, told by his doctor that he must "go and live in the country and lead the life of a vegetable for at least six months". With his sister he rents a cottage in a small English village "of no importance whatsoever".

Accordingly, when the poison pen letters begin circulating, it is this narrator, a stranger to the village, who decribes things as he sees them, retails all the local gossip, and reports everyone's suspicions about the writer of the letters. A murder and an apparent suicide follow, and we read of the efforts of the local police to investigate.

Miss Marple thus is introduced late in the book and, of course, she proves better at solving the mystery than everybody else. You will be an astute and alert reader if you discover whodunit before Miss Marple reveals all.


Miss Marple cannot save the story   September 27, 2002
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

Written during the long wartime nights in London, only stopped by the frequent bombing raids, The Moving Finger (1943) is Agatha Christie's 42nd novel. ..."Rather to my surprise... I find that another one [of my books] I am rather pleased with is The Moving Finger," Christie wrote in her autobiography. True, you cannot miss the typical Miss Marple setting: take a small village engaged in gossip and add a nice juicy murder that could have been committed by every person living in that village. But that is where the parallel with books like The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) stops.

The characters depicted in The Moving Finger are crudely sketched, becoming almost unbelievable. For example, the main character, narrator and lacking all credibility, starts to annoy you after the first ten pages with his single-minded comments and simply ruins the pace of the story. When Miss Marple appears on the last pages, she cannot rescue the story, because the solution she proposes seems to have but few connections the actual story.


Agatha Christie's Psychology of Evil   August 3, 2002
 15 out of 17 found this review helpful

In addition to the delights one gleans from Christie's deft, skillful plotting, incisive wit, and rich characterizations, the true strength of "The Moving Finger" is Christie's examination of evil underneath the pristine surface. This "wickedness" lies not only beneath the beautiful exteriors of the sleepy village, but also beneath the shiny faces of its inhabitants.

Christie is quite adept at communicating the "atmosphere that seemed tinged with evil." When confronted with the distressing and distasteful poison pen letters appearing in the village, one of the characters exclaims, "Such a peaceful smiling happy countryside-and down underneath something evil....It's full of festering poison and it looks as peaceful and innocent as the Garden of Eden..." In addition, Christie recognizes the dark side of human nature, and that it is often extremely difficult to tell what people are really like beneath their poilte behavior. "I'm beginning to realize how little I really know about anyone...In everybody's life there are hidden chapters which they hope may never be known..."

Christie makes it clear, however, that this evil is not a supernatural phenomenon divorced from human intervention in a particulary perceptive and profound passage, "There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will...God doesn't really need to punish us...We're so very busy punishing ourselves..." And although "it isn't very pleasant to look upon the fellow creatures one meets as possible criminal lunatics," Christie takes a realistically pessimistic view of human nature and a depicts a village filled with "gossiping, whispering women" and "selfish, grasping natures."

"The Moving Finger" is an absorbing account of a sociopath. "Such apparently unlikely people do the most fantastic things." Christie reminds us that the most horrifying evil usually comes from the most unlikely source- seemingly upright, normal people who are hiding the most unfathonable and terrifying wickedness. "The Moving Finger" is one of her most skillfull and insightful productions.


My favourite Agatha Christie   July 26, 2002
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book is really enjoyable. It has an interesting plot, a satisfying mystery, and some very likeable characters. It was originally published in the early 1940s, but since the war is not mentioned or referred to in any way, perhaps it is meant to be set in the 1930s.
Jerry Burton is the narrator of The Moving Finger. He has withdrawn to Lymstock, a quiet country village, to recover from a flying accident, accompanied by his fashionable sister Joanna. Both of them are planning to take it easy, get to know their neighbours, and generally enjoy themselves. Then the arrival of an anonymous poison pen letter makes them wonder if they are as welcome in Lymstock as they had thought - until they find that there's an epidemic of nasty letters in the village. A worrying climate is developing, as people are beginning to take the contents of the letters seriously. And then Mrs Symmington, the local lawyer's wife, commits suicide after receiving such a letter. But since this an Agatha Christie book, we know that things aren't that simple.
Unlike a lot of Christie's books, it's the characters that make this one. Jerry is gruff but kind-hearted, and not afraid to say what he thinks. Joanna is likewise kind-hearted, but less obvious about it; willing to niggle and manipulate to challenge people's views or get her own way. Other characters such as Owen Griffiths, the doctor; his sister, the annoyingly hearty Aimee; and Mrs Dane Calthrop, the disconcerting vicar's wife, also capture the attention and move the story along. Megan Hunter, Mrs Symmington's daughter, is another good character, a "changeling" who doesn't fit into village life and is taken under Jerry and Joanna's wing.
So what, you may ask, is the connection of Jerry to the poison pen letters? Being an outsider, he isn't willing to sweep the matter under the rug, and works with the police to solve the crime - the solution of which is both ingenious, and something the alert reader (that is, a lot more alert than me!) has a fair chance of figuring out. Don't expect much Miss Marple in this book, though (which I was kind of glad of - the more I read of her, the less I like her) - she only turns up towards the very end to reveal all. It's kind of a pity she appears at all, since Jerry is strong enough to carry the book on his own, and MM's appearance is merely an in-joke to the established reader of Christie's books.
The Moving Finger has the usual Christie strengths of an ingenious plot, a clarity of style, and justice being done. Add to that good characters and something I particularly enjoy, a window into a world that no longer exists, and you have a very good book. I think it's one of her best.