Rest rudely
Rest rude (original title Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case ) is the 66th detective novel by Agatha Christie . It appeared in the UK in October 1976 at the Collins Crime Club and in the US at Dodd, Mead and Company later that year. The German first edition was published in 1977 by Scherz Verlag (Bern, Munich) with the translation by Eva Schönfeld, which is still used today.
It determines Miss Marple in her twelfth and final case.
The novel was published posthumously, and although it will be the last novel to be published by Agatha Christie, it was written in 1940 during World War II, at a time known in London as The Blitz .
Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot's last case ( curtain ) had put it in the vault of a bank to provide for bad times. When it became apparent in 1975 that she could no longer write any more novels (Christie was now 85 years old), she cleared the curtain for publication. For the coming year, she roughly prepared the publication of rest , but she died on January 10, 1976.
While Poirot in the Curtain is old and sick and even dies in the end, nothing here suggests that this is Miss Marple's last case.
action
Gwenda Reed (nee Halliday), a young woman in her early twenties, is returning to England from overseas. When she was two, her father brought her from India to New Zealand after her mother's death, where she grew up with relatives.
Now she is newly married to Giles Reed, who will soon follow her to England, and is looking for a house. In Dillmouth she finds an old house that she likes very much and buys it. She moves in and soon believes that something is wrong with the house. So she always runs against a wall because she thinks there must be a door there. In their opinion, there are also no stairs leading from the terrace into the garden. Instead, there is a staircase at a different location.
To recover from this, she accepts an invitation to Raymond West, Miss Marple's nephew, to London. Miss Marple's interest is aroused when, during a joint visit to the theater, Gwenda is so terrified by a murder scene that she has to leave the performance. It turns out that Gwenda had already lived in the house as a child. Her mother died in India and her father came with her to England, where they lived in the same house that Gwenda and Giles now live in. So she could remember a few things in her house. There she had also witnessed a murder of a woman named Helen without the killer noticing her. At first she can't remember a woman named Helen.
Gwenda and Giles, with the help of Miss Marple, try to learn more about Helen. It turns out that Helen was her father's second wife he met while traveling from New Zealand to England. The couple placed an advertisement in a newspaper, whereupon Helens half-brother, Dr. Kennedy, who used to be a local doctor, reports to them. He told of Helen's supposed disappearance and that Gwenda's father believed he had killed his wife, whereupon he took his own life.
With Miss Marple's help, Gwenda and Giles investigate the background of Helen and thus get in touch with Helen's former friends and lovers.
Meanwhile, another Witness who used to work in the Halliday household has emerged. She wants to meet Dr. Kennedy, but gets on an earlier train and gets off at the wrong station. She is found murdered nearby.
The Reed couple increasingly realized the threat they faced when their domestic servant nearly died of poisoned brandy. Meanwhile, on a tip from Miss Marple, Helen's body is found by the staggered stairs.
When Dr. Kennedy later shows up in the house where Gwenda is alone, she recognizes him as Helen's murderer. Dr. Kennedy wants to kill Gwenda, but the arriving Miss Marple thwarts this attempt.
The resolution is as follows: In truth, Dr. Kennedy laid out several false leads, including alleged letters from Helen's after her departure. He did not want to have any other man in Helen's life. Helen sees through the machinations of Dr. Kennedy and wants to move out of Dillmouth. By drugging Helen's husband and influencing him as his family doctor, he suggests that he killed Helen. In reality, he had killed Helen and buried her body in the garden. He had moved the stairs to make the body less likely to be discovered. Now he could portray her disappearance as if she had run off with a lover. He sent the Hallidays domestic worker a letter with an earlier time and incorrect directions, stating that she should bring the letter with her. After the murder, he exchanged letters.
people
- Miss Jane Marple, the amateur detective
- Gwenda Reed Halliday, a young woman looking for a house
- Giles Reed, her husband
- James Kennedy, a retired medical doctor
- Walter Fane, a lawyer
- Jackie Afflick, a trader
- Richard Erskine, an officer
- Janet Erskine, his wife
- Edith Pagett, cook at Halliday
- Lily Kimble, housekeeping at the Halliday home
- Inspector primer
References to other works
In the tenth chapter there is a scene in a sanatorium that appears in a similar way in the novel Lauter, Lovely Old Ladies . There she contributes significantly to the development of the plot.
In both novels, an elderly lady is drinking a glass of milk in the lounge of the sanatorium in this scene and tells a little confused about a “poor child behind the fireplace”.
Film adaptations
Miss Marple (1987)
In 1987 the novel was made into a film for the BBC TV series Miss Marple . The main role is played by Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.
Agatha Christie's Marple (2006)
In 2006 the novel was filmed for the second season of the television series Agatha Christie's Marple with Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple.
Major expenses
- 1976 Collins Crime Club (London), October 1976
- 1976 Dodd Mead and Company (New York)
- 1977 German first edition Scherz Verlag (Bern, Munich) with the translation by Eva Schönfeld
Audio books
- 2004 rest rude (5 CDs): audio book, only unabridged reading. Speaker: Gabriele Blum. Director: Hans Eckardt. Translation by Eva Schönfeld. Publishing house and studio for audio book productions (Marburg / Lahn)
Web links
- Sleeping Murder on the official Agatha Christie website
- Miss Marple: Sleeping Murder (1987) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Marple: Sleeping Murder (2006) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Collins Crime Club - A checklist of First Editions Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 16)
- ^ Cooper and Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide: Second Edition (Pages 82 and 87) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ Audiobook (complete) in the catalog of the German National Library