Agatha Christie's well-loved amateur detective Jane Marple, returns to solve twelve compelling mysteries. The beloved elderly woman is a keen observer of human nature, and in this collection of short stories written by today's well-known mystery writers she is at the top of her game. The stories take her around the world and at each stop you can read about her remarkable ability to solve even the most complicated crimes. I hope we see more of her in the future.

No one can do Marple like Agatha Christie, but these authors do an admirable job in this collection of twelve original short stories featuring Jane Marple. If nothing else, this collection may introduce new readers to the wonderful world of Agatha Christie. Some of the stories fell a bit flat in comparison to the others, but it's a nice collection overall.

I know, I know; Christie is dead, so how can there be new Marple mysteries? Answer - someone had the brilliant idea of getting together a dozen Agatha Christie fans who are also outstanding writers of crime/mystery/thriller and let them create new cases for our favorite little old lady.

What if Miss Marple needed to solve a murder on board a ship bound for Hong Kong? What if she went to New York and mayhem ensued? No matter where our dear Jane happens to be, there is always evil underfoot. We meet old friends again - Dolly Bantry, Raymond and Joan, Constable Palk, Inspector Slack, Sir Henry Clithering - you get the idea.

Each story is unique, but with all the Christie hallmarks mixed with the imagination of today's authors. In one offering the protagonist is a mystery writer. In another a character's actions are inspired by their knowledge of Dorothy Sayers and her sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. In every case the writers play by Christie's sense of fairness- the clues are provided if we can just sort out those that are relevant to the solution.

If you enjoy the original Christie stories, enjoy the work of the current authors, or both, then you will have a wonderful time finding out what happens when those two worlds collide. Due for publication on September 13, so you can enjoy it over fall break or put it away as the perfect Christmas present for any mystery lovers you know.

Marple: Twelve New Mysteries is a collection of twelve original short stories that are full of mystery and intrigue. What a delightful new collection!

Miss Marple lives! An enticing array of new "Marples" written by contemporary authors--each a delight for old and new Christie readers. Highly recommended.

Thanks to William Morrow and to Netgalley for the pleasure of an early read.

** “The problem with that, you see, is that no one is ever the murdering sort until they are. The least likely people can shock you. Young mothers, elderly clergy, esteemed businessmen.” **

Twelve contemporary authors take on the world of Agatha Christie’s beloved character Jane Marple in “Marple: Twelve New Mysteries.”

All of the short stories feature Miss Marple solving a small-town mystery, usually murder. Most are written in a very similar style to Christie’s, leaving the reader to feel they are reading stories written by the Grand Dame of Mystery herself, filled with plots including a curate pining over a lost love, a patriarch testing family loyalty and mistaken identities.

Many of the stories also feature relatives of Miss Marple, as well as old friends. And as always, Jane uses her powers of deduction, observation and listening to solve each case quietly and efficiently. (“You would never think that that lace cap hid one of the finest crime-solving brains in all of Christendom, would you?”)

The stories also include some great themes, reminiscent of Christie’s original tales, like never underestimate instinct; murder is often linked to matters of the heart; the power of the knowledge of human nature; there is wickedness everywhere; and suspicion versus proof (“Having a suspicion is not the same as proof.”)

The authors of “Marple,” which is due out Sept. 13, include Lucy Foley, Val McDermid, Alyssa Cole, Natalie Haynes, Ruth Ware, Naomi Alderman, Jean Kwok, Dreda Say Mitchell, Elly Griffiths, Karen M. McManus, Kate Mosse and Leigh Bardugo.

Five stars out of five.

William Morrow provided this complimentary copy through NetGalley for my honest, unbiased review.

The new mysteries in this collection are incredibly "Christie" mysteries in a more modern theme. The stories all collect Ms. Marple and her family, her nephew and his wife and her close friends from the original stories and brings life into new tales.

I received an ARC of, Marple: Twelve New Mysteries, by Agatha Christie; Naomi Alderman; Leigh Bardugo; Alyssa Cole; Lucy Foley; Elly Griffiths; Natalie Haynes; Jean Kwok; Val McDermid; Karen M. McManus; Dreda Say Mitchell; Kate Mosse; Ruth Ware. I really enjoyed meeting Miss Marple again, I love reading her mysteries and watching her show.

Great collection of short stories featuring the beloved Miss Marple by contemporary fiction authors. Many times these sorts of books are very uneven with just a few stars but I found this one to be consistently well done and enjoyable. My personal favorite was a clever twist done by Elly Griffiths which contained several surprises.

Miss Marple with her common sense and that wealth of experience of human nature gained in St. Mary Mead was her usual calm and discerning self in all the stories.

Very worthwhile and fun for any mystery fan, particularly Agatha Christie and Miss Marple lovers. Thanks to the publisher and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I grew up reading Agatha Christie as a teen and young adult so I was thrilled to read this. These short stories by women authors captured Miss Marple in all her charm and intellect, although a few were a bit out of character. Ruth Ware’s story was the high point as she perfectly captured the atmosphere and whimsy of Miss Marple.

#netgalleyarc I really enjoyed this Miss Marple collection. The stories were quick to read but really well written. I like the idea of reading about the same character but each time written by a different author. I’ll definitely be purchasing this for my high school library.

I absolutely loved the premise of this book! Having twelve different well-known authors create new mysteries for Miss Marple to solve sounded amazing. I knew most of the authors and enjoyed the books I had read by them.
However, I found I only really got into a handful of the stories here. Some that had been written by authors I liked just didn't grab my attention the way I expected them to.
I think it will be a fun read for fans of Miss Marple that have read all her works, but if I wanted to introduce someone to the character, I'd point them towards Agatha Christie's books.

Loved this collection of short stories. Each author remained true to the character of Miss Marple and had done their due diligence in bringing in past friends and colleagues. Each story was as good as the last!

I'm a huge fan of thrillers and mystery novels. Marple: Twelve New Mysteries is the perfect addition to your collection. So many of my favorite authors are in this and it was a fun time!

Twelve award winning authors take on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple with a new short story featuring that marvelously clever and humorous character. A few of the stories are outstanding and almost outdo the master of British crime mystery herself. However, anthologies like this are often uneven and this volume is no exception. Will still be a popular read for mystery fans and would make for a good book discussion precisely because of the unevenness.

Miss Marple returns in 12 unique stories by 12 well known mystery authors. Each tale has Miss Marple solving a mystery in her own calm way, but it all makes sense if we only look at the information. Great book to sit back, read and relax when life gets crazy.

MARPLE: TWELVE NEW MYSTERIES, is an anthology of twelve Miss Marple short stories by different authors. Unfortunately, the quality is uneven at best. Some of the stories are, to be frank, painfully boring, and others take a YA approach, or create a darkly disturbing version of Marple that seems untethered from Agatha Christie's characters. As with many mystery short stories, often the whole point is to get to the denouement, when the reader is dazzled by Miss Marple's brilliance--often without the advantage of seeing key details that informed her thinking. Overall, a disappointing collection.

Ah, a series of love letters to Dame Agatha and her Miss Marple!

I love Christie, and her Marple mysteries are some of the finest! I grew up watching Murder She Wrote with my grandma, itself another nod to the fabulous Marple.

Fans of the authors represented here will like this collection. Each story is a quick read, and cozy mystery lovers will find the plots fun and easy to enjoy. A delightful homage to the dame of mystery herself.

Like many others, I have long been a fan of Agatha Christie—especially her creation of Miss Jane Marple. At one time or another, I have read all the Marple books, most of them more than once. So the idea of twelve new mysteries written by a collection of accomplished authors immediately appealed to me as both a reader and a novelist. As a writer, I was curious to see how different people would approach a character who was dreamed up by someone else. I did something similar in my own first published novel, “The Not Exactly Scarlet Pimpernel”—although I made it clear from the beginning that this was not Baroness Orczy’s Sir Percy but my own reimagined version.

Does the collection attain its goal? I would say it does, on the whole. Some writers get closer to Christie’s Marple than others; a few struggle a bit with the reality that people in the 1930s and Brits in general didn’t/don’t use the same slang as contemporary Americans (these are probably not historical novelists, who learn that lesson fast); and perhaps not surprisingly, the writers in the collection make ample use of Miss Marple’s well-off nephew to get her out of St. Mary Mead. One suspicious death in a generation in an English village is remarkable; more than a dozen stretches the bounds of credibility. Some of the solutions proposed are both truly inventive and reflective of the individual writers’ concerns.

There is one unavoidable drawback: the short-fiction format—even though Christie used it herself—leaves little room for warring motives, red herrings, character development, and final plot twists. Some of the fun of reading and solving a murder mystery is lost as a result. But nonetheless, these stories are a delight.

I’ll be hosting a collective Q&A on my blog (linked below) in mid-September if all goes off as planned.

It's always hard to take a property that is as beloved as Miss Marple and try to tell it anew, but I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to revive a series, it should do something that the original didn't, because if not, there's no point. If I want Miss Marple exactly as Agatha Christie would have written her, I'll just read Agatha Christie, which brings me to my biggest issue with this collection: it doesn't do enough to separate it from its source material. I appreciated the stories by Alyssa Cole, Jean Kwok, and Dreda Say Mitchell, which confronted issues like imperialism, racism, and patriarchal systems in ways that Christie could not (and perhaps would not) have done in the original stories. The authors in this collection are some heavy hitters and the stories have a coziness that's easy to read, but I wish more had been done to reflect our changing understanding of the past and its effect on the present.