[The Murder at the Vicarage] [by: Agatha Christie]

Colonel Protheroe is one of the most disliked men in St. Mary Mead, so when he is found shot dead in the vicar's study, the suspect list is practically the village directory. The vicar himself had publicly declared that killing Protheroe would be a service to the world, which makes him an unlikely investigator of his own potential guilt. Miss Marple, the vicar's neighbor, observes the village's grief and calculation from her garden as she gradually assembles a picture that the official investigation has missed. Agatha Christie's first full-length Miss Marple novel introduces the character in her proper setting.

Richard E. Grant narrates the St. Mary Mead world with the right combination of geniality and dark comedy, giving the vicar's narration its proper self-deprecating quality while letting Miss Marple emerge as the novel's true intelligence. His command of the ensemble of suspects and observers keeps the village dynamics vivid throughout. At just over eight hours, this is the essential starting point for the Miss Marple series.