The Murder at the Vicarage

The Murder at the Vicarage, published in 1930, is the novel that introduced Miss Jane Marple, the elderly village spinster whose sharp eye and longer memory make her one of the great detectives in fiction. The unpopular Colonel Protheroe is found shot dead in the study of the vicarage in the quiet village of St. Mary Mead, and almost everyone, it seems, had a reason to want him gone. The vicar himself tells the story as the police blunder and false confessions multiply, while Miss Marple, knitting and watching from her garden, quietly works out the truth. It is the first full outing for a character who would become a household name. This free PDF and EPUB gives the complete novel.