Lucy Foley’s Grand Alpine murder: Let sleeping Marple lie?

Fifty years ago this month, the last Agatha Christie novel, Sleeping Murder, was published. To mark the half centenary, the Christie estate authorised the publication of a new Miss Marple novel, the first ‘official’ outing of the resurrected elderly detective. In time for Halloween, here’s a review of Lucy Foley’s Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, so you can decide if you should read this book as a Christie nostalgia trip, as just another murder mystery — or at all.

For Marple and Christie fans, the book begins promisingly enough. It is 1950, and Miss Marple is on a Swiss vacation with the recently widowed Dolly Bantry, accompanied by Mrs. Bantry’s help, Diana Glass. There are enough references to The Body in the Library and other Miss Marple trivia to evoke fond smiles.

The (first) murder is announced in the very first page. The story then begins from two days ago, so as new characters are introduced, there is the suspense of guessing who among them is soon to be killed. I found the first 75 pages fun enough, as anticipation about the mystery as well as the book grew. It was after this that the book ran into several problems.

Unreliable narrators, uninspiring narration

Agatha Christie has remained one of the most loved novelists for over a century for many reasons. There is of course her mastery of plot and puzzle, of ingenious, inventive, but never implausible denouements. But there is also everything else. She marries murder mystery with comedy of manners superbly, and it is a delight to gently shut the door on the outside world and get lost in hers.

Her settings are well-sketched, her characters vivid. And her dialogue glides. Christie is funny, intelligent, evocative and profound. This is also why she invites re-reads. The first time, you might race through the book to find out the murderer, but each subsequent re-reading reveals new pleasures.

My first problem with Grand Alpine Hotel was its jerkiness. Not once did I find the smooth flow of Christie. Foley uses multiple first-person narrations, which is her style. But in this book, it comes across as lopsided. An inner monologue can be a great plot device. But a monologue is, after all, a conversation with oneself. In this book, the characters talk at you, rather like in a stage play where no one thinks much of the audience.

The characters are all flat. Christie herself has been accused of using set, two-dimensional characters, but in her books, they serve the purpose of being instantly recognisable. They remind you of someone you know and can understand. In Foley, the characters are tropes rather than types. The repressed wife, the fading siren, the crooked politician. And in case that wasn’t on the nose enough, the characters spell it out for you. “I am the angel in the house”, “he is rather a bounder”, etc.

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Lucy Foley’s Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel. Agatha Christie flavour not found.

Indeed, no one can accuse the book of subtlety. An actress inching past her prime? Cue the drugs and offers of playing the hero’s mum. A marriage in trouble? The best representation is a bedroom scene where the swaggering husband can’t get it up and the wife can’t keep the apathy down.

Foley and folly

But my problem is not just the writing style. Christie is a very high bar to match. It is also the un-Marple-ness of the flavour, in a book planned as a spin-off.

The original Miss Marple’s world has no shortage of grey characters, but there is no confusion about morality itself. Foley imbues the book with the modern preoccupation of making everyone morally ambiguous. While people can indeed be terrible, in a ‘cosy’ mystery like Christie, along with the murder, the story needs some unambiguous good or honour or virtue as counter-weight. Foley disregards that, along with the caution that a book with no likeable character would be difficult to like.

Read the older editions of Yours Literarily 

There is also the other modern preoccupation with a “complex” woman. That an interesting woman has to be troubled and unreliable in some way. That her being smart and competent and content, like the original Miss Marple, isn’t enough.

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However, I was thankful the book was respectful to Miss Marple herself. In some scenes, she lacks the vitality of the original; she is rather like an animated marionette of Christie’s Marple. But she isn’t revealed to be a serial killer or have a secret lover, and we rejoice at the small mercies.

If this wasn’t an authorised Miss Marple, would the book be enjoyable? I suppose yes, it is engaging enough. The unreliable narrators and the eventual ending would have worked if Miss Marple wasn’t being force-fit into the plot. The logical and psychological discrepancies could have been papered over if the racier aspects of the plot, left under-explored out of deference for the Marple brand, were etched out better.

Foley was probably picked for this project because of her “international bestseller” status. The better choice would have been to let sleeping Marple lie.

And for you, dear reader, the better choice would be to read Foley’s other books, or just re-read Sleeping Murder.

See you next month,

Yours Literarily,

yashee.s@indianexpress.com

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