What Poirot novels do you think would be better suited to Miss Marple?

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  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    No, there are enough with Poirot, I hate Endless Night I find it so dull, It needed a Recurring Character and could have had one in the form of Race, Hastings, Luke, Calgary or Charles Heywood to help this dull and nauseating story along, Death Comes At The End and Passenger To Frankfurt also Dull and nauseating IMHO couldn't.
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    Hastings is one of the few Poirot Watsons who does not appear in any of the other series - Mrs Oliver and Miss Lemon both appear in the Parker Pyne series, and Race appears in The Man in the Brown Suit. Battle appears in Towards Zero and Murder is Easy. By the time The Murder on the Links was written, Christie admitted she was growing tired of Hastings and wanted to marry him off and cart him off to Argentina the first chance she got!

    I found Endless Night quite good as it was, though I found certain characters could have been kept out of the plot completely with no effect to the reveal.

    I also think Miss Marple would have quite enjoyed the Hallowe'en Party - all those murders with village parallels just waiting to be drawn! In that case, however, we might have had Raymond West as the novelist who Joyce was trying to impress, rather than Mrs Oliver. And Miss Marple would have had a wonderful time talking to Miss Emlyn and consoling Mrs Reynolds. However, we might have to do away with Spence and Elspeth (or else make Mrs McKay one of Miss Marple's friends).
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

    I know all that about Hastings, Ariadne, Miss Lemon, Race and Battle, It is just my opinion, you Like Endless Night whereas I found it dry and lifeless and in need of a Recurring Character to give it a lift and sparkle,

    I would not put Miss Marple in Halloween Party, If I was to do anything with it maybe I would swap Poirot for Luke from Murder is Easy or Calgary from Ordeal by Innosense I definitely would not take out Spence or Elspeth who are in my opinion the best Characters in the Book apart From Poirot and Ariadne

  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    What about short stories? I would love to see her replace Poirot in Mystery At Hunters Lodge with Dolly replacing Hastings after all Miss Marple wasn't at the Fete in The Mirror Crack'd or at Little Paddocks in A Murder Is Announced and the Gathering at Little Paddocks and those were retold to her 2nd hand
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    I agree, Tommy! I'd also, perhaps, like it if we had Miss Marple's involvement in The Adventure of Johnny Waverly, as an aunt of Mrs Waverly, perhaps...? Or a friend, former neighbour, something of the sort. I would have liked to see her views on the kidnapping on children and her insights into Tredwell and Miss Collins.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I agree about The Adventure of Johnny Waverley, I don't recall who Miss Collins is but wasn't Tredwell in The Bundle Books? I don't see her at Chimneys, or with Lady Derwent and Bobby either.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I would also put her in Sparkling Cyanide, I don't like the Book so have only read it once but I can see her solveing the thing with Colonel Race that is if he doesn't marry Suzy
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    What about Harley Quinn? Which novels do you think he would make an interesting addition to? Since he was a friend of lovers, I might be inclined to suggest Evil Under the Sun, since a 'crime passionel' is the verdict among the guests. Satterthwaite might also enjoy detection in the novel, being the slight snob that he is, and he can have his pickings among the hotel guests. (Miss Darnley might be the closest to a society dame he can lay his hands on!)
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    Dead Man's Folly, what if it was set on the Property of a friend of Dolly Bantry's or on The Bantry's land and they still got Ariadne to do the treasure Hunt but Dolly brought Miss Marple and it would sought of be like the Ustinov Film but with MM instead of Poirot and Dolly instead of Hastings
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    How interesting, @Tommy_A_Jones! But in that case, how would you work in Sir and Lady Stubbs? As guests? Or perhaps, like in "The Mirror Crack'd", the Bantrys could have sold it to Sir George and Lady Harriet. The couple who lodged on the grounds could become tenants or live in the "development".
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    Oh yes I was forgetting, perhaps The could be run by friends of Lord and Lady Stubbs which they hire out or perhaps Lord Stubbs's Mother is an old Friend of Dolly.
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    You mean Mrs Folliat?
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    Yes, I can see her and Dolly mixing in the same circles
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    What about replacing Tommy and Lady Derwent for The Beresfords for Why Didn't They Ask Evans? or the other way round for By The Pricking of My Thumbs?
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    I would like the Beresfords in "Why Didn't They Ask Evans" - I feel sure that Tuppence would like Bassington-ffrench as well.
  • I would like the Beresfords in "Why Didn't They Ask Evans" - I feel sure that Tuppence would like Bassington-ffrench as well.
    Can't help but wonder why Christie didn't use Tommy & Tuppence in "Evans" because Bobby Jones and Lady Frances Derwent are similar to them. 
  • edited October 2017
    I think I read somewhere in John Curran's coverage of Christie's notebooks that she was going to use the Beresfords in Cat Among The Pigeons. Makes sense since the book has a spy angle to it. But I'm kind of glad that they weren't used but I'm sure Tommy & Tuppence wouldn't have made a late appearance half way through the book like Poirot did. Using the Beresfords would have resulted in a more fluid book, whereas Poirot's long-awaiting arrival divided the story into two parts. It's been awhile since I read "Pigeons" but did anyone get that impression? 
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I don't think The Berefords in CAT P would have made a good read, I think \Miss Marple wold have been better, I wonder if Bundle and Battle would have worked in Evans or Bundle and Narracott, but I am glad we have Bobby and Lady D, we don't have enough of them or Bundle and Lord Caterham or Narracott
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I would have liked to have had more of Spence and his sister Elspeth
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    Hercule Poirot's Christmas which would make it Miss Marple's Christmas, She could be a Friend of The Woman who is arried to The Man who lives at The House,  and I know it isn't a Novel The Adventure of The Christmas Pudding
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I mean Lydia's Friend and In The Adventure of The Christmas Pudding she could be a Friend of the Woman of The House.
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    Excellent idea, @Tommy_A_Jones! I would have also thought that Miss Marple could be a friend of the late Mrs Lee (the mother of George, Harry, David, Alfred and Jennifer). But in the novel, I feel sure she would know at one SPOILER ALERT about Superintendent Sugden - she would ask about his family, and, meeting Mrs (or Miss) Sugden, know at once that the Superintendent shared no familial resemblance with his supposed "father" or mother, and looked like Simeon Lee.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    She would Phone Dermot just like she phones Dolly in a Book where Dolly is only mentioned.
  • HerculeAndAchilleHerculeAndAchille Harrogate, England
    That’s right - I’d forgotten about that. I’d certainly like Miss Marple in ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ - as an friend of Mrs Hubbard (or involving Sally Finch as a protégée of Raymond West). Though an important part of the plot is that Mrs Hubbard was Miss Lemon’s sister, that fact can be reduced to an interesting Easter-egg, so to say. Miss Marple’s interactions with the young people (of a plethora of nationalities) would be interesting.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

    There are not too many steps from Miss Lemon to Miss Marple, Miss Lemon to Ariadne to Dane Calthorp to Miss Marple so it is conceivable that Miss Hubbard would know Miss Marple, Good Idea HerculeAndAchille

  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

    I meant not Inconcievable
  • She would Phone Dermot just like she phones Dolly in a Book where Dolly is only mentioned.

    Which book is that?
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I can't remember but in one which doesn't have Dolly Miss Marple phones Dolly for information, It might be The Mirror Crack's or They Do It With Mirrors or Pocketful of Rice or Sleeping Murder.
  • In "The mirror cracked" Dolly has quite a major role. In "They do it with mirrors" she isn't mentioned. I think you mean "Sleeping murder", where Miss Marple meets Dolly Bantry in her garden to ask her about her former cook who now has a boarding house in Dillmouth.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I didn't think Dolly was in Sleeping Murder, I mean Miss Marple is away at someone's House and she says she Phoned her Friend Dolly for Information about something
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