Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage marks the first full appearance of Miss Marple-the deceptively mild spinster whose sharp intelligence would become one of crime fiction's greatest creations. Set in the quietly gossiping village of St. Mary Mead, this is where Christie perfected the art of hiding menace in plain sight, turning tea cups and vicarage teas into the background for a murder no one could have predicted. St. Mary Mead looks like a sleepy English village, but behind its lace curtains and afternoon teas lurk secrets-and Miss Marple sees every one of them.

This isn't the globe-trotting glamour of Hercule Poirot. It's a sharp, funny portrait of small-town life where gossip, jealousy, and murder share the same sitting room. Critics and novelists alike have long singled it out as one of Christie's most quietly radical books: Raymond Chandler, though no admirer of the genteel whodunit, grudgingly admitted her "clever invention," while W. H. Auden saw Christie's mysteries as "moral works of art."

Written in 1930 and still wickedly observant nearly a century later, The Murder at the Vicarage is Christie at her most quietly subversive-an English idyll with a dead body at its heart, and a detective who sees far more than she ever lets on. This Warbler Classics edition includes a detailed biographical note.