Tag: Marple


Feb
2025

A Pocket Full of Rye – Bird Pie

categories: Chicken, Dining With The Dame, Marple, Savoury Pies and Tarts

Hello crime readers and food lovers. Welcome to Dining with The Dame! Today’s book, A Pocket Full of Rye, is my favourite Miss Marple to date. I absolutely loved this one.  This is not so much a Dark Marple but a Marple out for vengeance!  To paraphrase the 1976 film Network, “She’s as mad as hell, and she’s not going to take it anymore”!  And I am here for every second of it! 

Inspector Neele gave a sudden, rather unexpected smile. He was thinking to himself that Miss Marple was very unlike the popular notion of an avenging fury.  And yet, he thought that was perhaps exactly what she was.

A Pocket Full Of  Rye – Agatha Christie

Something I did not love about this book, at least in writing this post, was the weird use of ‘Pocket Full’ versus ‘Pocketful’. However, if Agatha Christie preferred it that way, who am I to judge?

Today’s menu will be a Bird Pie from Diana Henry’s excellent book A Bird In The Hand.  Please note that I am not aiming for any verisimilitude with the text by baking four and twenty blackbirds in my pie.  This bird pie contains a far more prosaic (and I’m sure more delicious) chicken!  

Bird Pie 1

A Pocket Full of Rye – The Plot

Setting The Scene

The king was in the counting-house, counting out his money…

Rex Fortescue, a wealthy businessman, dies after drinking a cup of tea in his office. However, it soon becomes apparent that the circumstances are far more complex than they initially seemed. Firstly, the actual poison was taxine, a deadly poison derived from Yew trees. Since taxine is a slow-acting poison, it could not have been contained in the tea. Instead, it was far more likely to have been something Rex consumed earlier, such as breakfast. Furthermore, he was found with some grains of rye in his pocket, an intriguing detail that adds another layer to the mystery.

Suspicion soon turns to Rex’s second and much younger wife, Adele. Indeed, Adele was almost certainly having an affair with her “golfing” partner, Vivien Dubois, providing her with a strong motive for murder.

The queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey…

However, not long after Rex’s death, Adele is also killed via cyanide in her afternoon tea.

Bird Pie 2

The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes, when down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose

Gladys Mitchell, the Fortescue’s maid, is later discovered strangled by the washing line with a clothes peg on her nose.

Enter Miss Marple

Gladys, the maid, had previously worked for Miss Marple.  In fact, Miss Marple trained Gladys in housekeeping straight from the orphanage.  Miss Marple remembers Gladys as a somewhat gullible, hopelessly romantic young girl.  And she is fuming about the way that Gladys died!

“It was the clothes peg  that really worried me,” said Miss Marple in her gentle voice…That’s what made me so angry, if you can understand, my dear.  It was such a cruel, contemptuous gesture.  It gave me a kind of picture of the murderer. To do a thing like that!  It’s very wicked you know to affront human dignity”

A Pocket Full of Rye – Agatha Christie

We have:

  • The return of Rex’s wayward son, Lancelot
  • Strange muddy footprints in the house
  • A housekeeper with something to hide
  • A mysterious person in the garden
  • An entire family vowing revenge on Rex Fortescue for some financial double-dealings around a failed goldmine in Africa
  • Blackbirds left on a windowsill and baked into a pie

Thankfully, Miss Marple can pull together these disparate threads and gain justice for poor Gladys.  And, I guess, Rex and Adele.  Even though they, and the members of their family, are all awful people.  

A Pocket Full of Rye – The Covers

Pocket Full of Rye Collage

There are some amazing covers here. Lots of blackbirds and cups of tea as to be expected. There are also two great pulp covers featuring Rex and Adele lying dead.  My favourite, though, is the German cover with the hand on the lawn, presumably referencing Gladys, lying dead by the washing line.  Maybe, like Miss Marple, I am happy she is being recognised, if only in death. 

Below this is a rather unflattering drawing of Miss Marple on the cover of a Czech version.  In contrast, two to the right of this one, there looks to be a very snazzily dressed Miss Marple wearing a beautiful lilac suit paired with a gorgeous green scarf, bag and umbrella.  It’s such a pleasant change to see a glam Miss Marple.  Even though I’m sure far more eyes were focussed on the central figure of a very buxom Adele virtually bursting out of what is most definitely not a golfing outfit! 

Miss Marple

The Recipe: Bird Pie

I very much enjoyed this.  The capers were a really nice addition that added a little spark to this chicken pie! 

AA Bird Pie

Bird Pie 3

Links to the Christieverse

  • None that I could find. Please let me know if you find any!

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in They Do It With Mirrors

Our read for March will be Destination Unknown. 

Have a great week!

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Nov
2023

The Moving Finger – Irish Stew

categories: Dining With The Dame, Lamb, Marple

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  This month our menu is a tribute to The Moving Finger, a 1942 novel by Agatha Christie featuring many people’s favourite amateur crime solver, Miss Jane Marple.  In contrast to the last few novels in which we have dined with the Dame, The Moving Finger is loaded with mentions of food including an Irish Stew.  My own opinions of stew match those of Megan Hunter (below) so when I made it, I thought that I would just have a taste and then the Fussiest Eater in the world could eat the rest.   This is exactly the type of food he loves.  My spoonful ended up being a whole bowl and  I would have had another for lunch the following day if the leftovers hadn’t been commandeered by someone else! So success all round.  I’ll definitely be making Irish Stew again.  

 

Irish Stew 1

The Moving Finger – The Plot

Jane Marple.  Look at her well.  I tell you, that woman knows more about the different kinds of human wickedness than anyone I’ve ever known.

Agatha Christie – The Moving Finger

Jerry Burton and his sister Joanna move to the “quiet” village of Lymstock so he can recover from injuries after a flying accident.  Shortly thereafter, they receive an anonymous letter accusing them of being lovers.  They burn the letter but soon learn that they are not the only people who are being targeted by the poison pen writer.  

Although offensive, the letters consist of wild speculation and don’t seem to target actual wrongdoing.  Then, one of the people from the village is found dead with a letter accusing her of adultery beside her.  

Irish Stew 2

We have:

  • The Police unable to solve the crimes
  • Another grisly murder where a housemaid is skewered to death.  Did she see something she shouldn’t have
  • A book found with pages ripped out – the source of the letters
  • Local citizens suspecting each other 

Good thing one of the villagers has the sense to call on her friend Jane Marple to set things right!

There are lots of things to love in The Moving Finger.  The details of village life and the characters who live in it are well-written.  My personal favourite is Mrs Dane Calthrop the Reverend’s wife.  She is an original thinker and the person to contact Miss Marple.  I love this response from her when asked if she has had a poison pen letter:

Oh yes, two, – no three.  I forget what they said.  Something very silly about Caleb and the schoolmistress, I think.  Quite absurd, because Caleb has absolutely no taste for fornication.  He never has had.  So lucky being a clergyman

What we might call today “too much information”.

I also very much liked Partridge, Jerry and Joanna’s cook who seems to be in a constant bad temper.  

There are also some things not to like.  There is a more than likely gay man in the village and a few homophobic comments made about him.  And there’s a weird romance going on between Jerry Burton and Megan Hunter.

Also, for a Marple novel, Miss Marple only enters on, in my edition, page 121 of a 160-page novel!  

Apart from these few niggles, I very much enjoyed this novel.  

The Moving Finger – The Covers

 

The Moving Finger Collage

I was delighted to find so many non-English covers for The Moving Finger – we have French, Spanish, German, Czech, Swedish and others I cannot identify.  My favourites are the German Die Scattenhand third row second left and the Swedish MordPer Korrespondens on the same row far right.  The English cover, bottom row, far left is terrifying!

The Recipe – Irish Stew

“Murder is a nasty business on an empty stomach.” 

Agatha Christie – The Moving Finger

For my Irish Stew I used the recipe on BBC Good Food by Bruno Desmazery. 

As mentioned, this was delicious and, despite my initial reluctance was something I would definitely make and eat again!  And, contrary to the quote from Megan Hunter below is not mostly potato and flavour.  Although, maybe in 1942 with wartime rationing it may well have been.  

I went round to apprise Partridge of the fact that there would be three to lunch.  I fancy that Partridge sniffed.  She certainly managed to convey without saying a word of any kind that she didn’t think much of that Miss Megan.  I went back to the verandah.  Ïs it quite alright?”asked Megan anxiously.  “Quite alright ” I said.” Ïrish Stew.”  “Oh well, that’s rather like dog’s dinner anyway isn’t it? I mean it’s mostly just potato and flavour””

Agatha Christie – The Moving Finger

Irish Stew 3

Links To The Christieverse

None that I could find

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in The Moving Finger

December’s Read is Sparkling Cyanide. 

     

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Mar
2021

Cherry Brandy – Murder at the Vicarage

categories: Dining With The Dame, Drinks, Marple

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  Today we are drinking with Dame Agatha and Miss Jane Marple.   The beverage of choice as we journey to St Mary Mead and murder most foul will be homemade cherry brandy.

Cherry Brandy 1

I must confess, I was not looking forward to Miss Marple.  For all his pomposity, I very much like Hercule Poirot and I  love the interplay between Poirot, Hastings and Inspector Japp. Poirot and Japp are also crime-fighting professionals which gives them some cred.

I also like the pluckiness of the female heroines we have met so far like Bundle and Anne Beddingfield and the adventure-seeking  Tuppence.  Miss Marple though?  Has always struck me as being just an old biddy busy body.   So I was delighted to read this very early on in The Murder at The Vicarage.

“My duty,”  said Griselda.  “My duty as the Vicaress.  Tea and scandal at four-thirty.”

“Who is coming?”

Griselda ticked them off on her fingers with a glow of virtue on her face.   “Mrs Price Ridley, Miss Wetherby, Miss Hartnell, and that terrible Miss Marple.”

“I rather like Miss Marple, ” I said.  “She has, at least, a sense of humour.”

“She’s the worst cat in the village,”  said Griselda.

Then a bit later on:

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”

Knowing that other people shared my view made me like this book a lot more than I thought I would.  And I really liked this book!   Despite Marple.

The Murder At The Vicarage – The Plot

Colonel Protheroe has been murdered. With a gun.  In the study of the Vicarage.  It seems like no one in St Mary Mead liked the Colonel.  Even the vicar had been overheard saying that anyone who killed him would be doing the world a service.

 

Cherry Brandy 3

As if that’s not all, we have:

  • Shennanigans with the handsome  painter who is setting all the female heart’s aflutter
  • Suspicious husbands
  • A girl called Lettice.  Maybe this is only interesting to me, given I was very nearly called Romaine.
  • Irregularities in the church accounts
  • False confessions aplenty
  • A mysterious woman in the village aptly called Mrs Lestrange
  • Suitcases containing stolen silverware and picric acid found in the woods
  • Threatening phone calls
  • Slashed paintings

It might actually be a good thing that the wicked cat Miss Marple is around to bring the villains to justice!

I LOVED the sense of humour in this book:

Unblushingly I suggested a glass of vintage port. I have some very fine old vintage port. Eleven o’clock in the morning is not the usual time for drinking port but I did not think that mattered with Inspector Slack. It was, of course, cruel abuse of the vintage port but one must not be squeamish about such things.

Murder in The Vicarage  – The Covers

There are some truly bonkers covers for this book.  My favourite of course is Tom Adams’ surrealist vision for Fontana which features a tennis racquet embodied as a vicar.  More disturbing is the cover bottom right which makes it look as if it might have been the KKK who put Colonel Protheroe away!

Even stranger – in these early covers?  Not a Marple in sight!  As much as I am not really a fan, what kind of sexist ageist BS is that?

Murder at The Vicarage collage

Murder at The Vicarage – On The Screen

Murder at the Vicarage featuring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple is on You Tube.

Persons of note in the episode are:

  • Mark Gatiss as Ronald Hawes the church curate.
  • Derek Jacobi as Colonel Protheroe
  • Jane Asher as Mrs Lester
  • Tim McInnerny as Reverend Leonard Clement
  • Miriam Margolyes as Mrs Price-Ridley

Cherry Brandy 4

“Of course, of course” said Miss Marple. “I quite understand. Won’t you sit down? And might I offer you a little glass of cherry brandy? My own making. A recipe of my grandmother’s”

– Murder at The Vicarage

The Recipe – Cherry Brandy

Unlike Miss Marple, my grandmothers didn’t hand me down a recipe for cherry brandy so I had to find one on the internet. I used this recipe from Larder Love and I really liked the result.  Not a bit like that awful cherry cough syrup which was my fear!   I popped in two star-anise as well as the cinnamon called for in the recipe. The resulting cherry brandy had a lovely subtle spiciness to it.

Cherry Brandy 5

Other Food Mentioned in The Murder At The Vicarage

Greens and Dumplings

Oysters

Eggs and Bacon

Marmalade

Blancmange

“Oh, we’ll go!” she said cheerfully. “A glass or two of homemade liqueur is just what one needs on Sunday evening. I think it’s Mary’s blancmange that is so frightfully depressing. It tastes like something out of a mortuary”.

Whisky and Soda

The next book, if you are reading along, is The Sittaford Mystery. Snuggle in, this one will see us snowbound in a tiny village on Dartmoor.  

Have a great week!

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