Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie

December 24 ,2023

I started this year just like last year with the theme of reading. I had found about the #readchristie2023 challenge and decided to take it up this year. It involved reading one Christie book every month of the year. I am proud that I not only stuck to it, but a couple of times I read two Christie Books in the month. To celebrate the last month of the challenge I read this gorgeous hard cover version of Sleeping Murder!

I found this book in Darya Ganj book market last month and knowing that December's book would be Sleeping Murder I bought it without any hesitation.

This month's prompt/theme was Strangulation. And it is the vision of a pair of hands strangulating an unknown neck that spooks Gwenda in her new home.

As one begins to read Sleeping Murder one feels like they are reading a gothic haunted house horror novel. Gwenda arrives in Britain looking for a house to buy on the east coast. She finds one house that just "feels" right. She starts imagining doors where there are none. And the workers find an old door painted over exactly where she imagined it. She pictures a small room at the end with a special wallpaper. And then she finds the same wallpaper in a locked dresser!

The dejavu peaks when visiting London to call her nerves she is in a show of The Duchess of Malfi and while hearing a dialogue "Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle, she died young..." She screams as she has the aforementioned vision.

Fortunately in the same show Miss Marple is present to take control of the situation and calm her down. And thus begins a mystery of a sleeping murder that should have kept sleeping. Once disturbed, it unravels an old mystery that Gwenda, her husband Giles and Miss Marple must figure out before the murderer gets to them as well.

This was also my first Miss Marple book. She has a much quiet way of going around and solving mysteries compared to the loud and egoistic ways of M. Poirot. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The story was very well crafted and unpredictable. The twists were convoluted enough to keep me invested and yet simple enough to be a quick read. I would definitely be checking out more of Miss Marple books in the coming future. P.S. the book had wonderful and creepy artwork that followed the story. I adore this antique hard cover.