Entertaining enough novel that I read to fulfil the cosy mystery task for Book Riot's Read Harder 2019 challenge, but not one of Christie's better ones, I think. Not that I've read more than a handful of hers, but books like Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None were just incredibly clever, and this seems a little dull by comparison. I don't know if it's just Miss Marple - who really only has a supporting type of role here - but she doesn't seem very compelling compared to Poirot, for instance.

Although I will say this: the most likeable part of this book was the cast of supporting characters (including Marple) and the total bemusement with which their vicar perceives them. He seems like chum in a shark tank, poor man, but the suppressed sort of very dry humour that Christie has leaking through the story - I'm sure she's laughing at or with most of her characters - is amusing. Compared to those characters, however, I didn't care a thing about the murder. Of course Miss Marple wrapped it all up nicely but I wasn't on fire to know or anything like that... though I did pick the identity of Mrs. Lestrange before the end, so even if I didn't care who did it I wasn't entirely blindsided.