This month’s Read Christie 2025 theme was “authors.” The book selection was The Thirteen Problems, a collection of Miss Marple short stories.
I enjoyed the book, but I typically don’t like to read short story collections from beginning to end over a short period. One of the great things about short stories is their ability to fill moments when you don’t want to read for very long or you don’t want to embark on the journey of a full book. I have several short story collections I dip into from time to time, checking them off on the table of contents as I go so I know where I left off. It may take me months to get through a full book of short stories. However, since I already had several books started this month, I ended up having to blaze through The Thirteen Problems at the last minute for this post, but I’d recommend reading it in the leisurely way I described above.
Part of the reason for this is that the stories (except for the last one which was my least favorite, incidentally) all follow a basic pattern. The first six stories feature a group of people who have gathered at the home of Miss Marple’s nephew. They take turns telling stories of mysteries they’ve experienced and letting the others guess the solution. Of course, Miss Marple is always right! The second six stories are the same set up, but they take place at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bantry, friends of Sir Henry, who’d been part of the first stories, too. Again, Miss Marple always comes through with the right answer when the others are stumped.
This format was a clever choice on Christie’s part. The fact that the mysteries had already occurred and just needed to be summarized allowed an interesting case to be condensed into short story length. By having a character present the summary, she was able to keep it fresh and interesting. The personality of the character speaking came through, making the summary more than just a list of facts or a bare bones play-by-play of the mystery.
However, since all the stories followed this same format, it started to lose its novelty over the course of the book. That’s why I suggest reading the short stories one at a time rather than cover to cover like a novel. In fact, I suspect Christie may have originally intended the stories to be read this way as she frequently reintroduces characters briefly or recaps what had brought them together.
I can’t really give a plot summary of this book since it was made up of many different stories and summarizing each of those would make this post super long. (Also, I read the first several stories a while back and, frankly, I don’t remember them.) So, I’ll just touch on some of the happenings in the book to give you a sense of its variety. The characters include writers, actresses, doctors, clergymen, military men, and nobility. The cases include poisoning, mistaken identity, a shipwreck with treasure, and even an eerie warning or two.
The reason this book was selected for this month’s “authors” theme is that Miss Marple’s nephew who is a main character for many of the stories is an author. However, I think the book fits that theme better in another way. The book is all about people telling stories. They each have their own style, and sometimes they even comment on the process of storytelling. Some take to it naturally, others have to stop and think, or they stumble through and have false starts. While only Miss Marple’s nephew is an author by profession, everyone engages in storytelling. Even Miss Marple weaves a kind of story when she solves a case. Her secret weapon is the close study of human nature she’s conducted in her unassuming village of St. Mary Mead. When she solves a case, she recalls a parallel from the past that connects to the situation at hand. This is an important skill for an author as well as an amateur detective.
Observations:
- As per usual, Christie’s characterization is fantastic. She does an excellent job preserving each character’s unique voice as they relate their stories without sacrificing the clarity of those stories.
- Sir Henry is the only character besides Miss Marple who is in all the stories, making him a main character of sorts. Occasionally, he serves as a point-of-view character, so we get to know him better than others in the book. I found him to be an enjoyable character. Christie did a good job making him interesting without distracting from the others in the story.
- A truly random note: When a book involves a character telling a long story, I don’t like when that story is put into quotes. If it runs to several paragraphs, the quote marks can get a bit distracting, and when the storyteller begins quoting others, that adds even more quote marks! I don’t know of a better way to do this, but it seems like we could come up with something : )
If you are an Agatha Christie fan or a short story lover, I recommend The Thirteen Problems. It would also be a great place to start if you enjoyed my recent post on short stories and are looking to add some to your shelves.
Note: I have a volume that includes all Christie’s Miss Marple short stories. The stories from The Thirteen Problems are in this book, but they are called The Tuesday Club Murders. As I’ve pointed out before, Christie’s work often has been published under multiple titles, so keep that in mind as you build your collection.