All the Miss Marples – ranked

In 2024, having completed all the Poirots, I read Dame Agatha Christie’s complete Miss Marple canon, consisting of 12 novels and 20 short stories. My earliest memories of Miss Marple are of the terrifying ice-blue eyes of the Joan Hickson version, quietly eviscerating a murder. It’s clear why Christie suggested her casting: she personifies the pitiless retribution of Nemesis and gets to the heart of the character – Miss Marple isn’t a nice old lady twinkling gently (a mistake made by some of the other actors to have attempted the role). There’s something very frightening about her. “Creepy” is a word that continually crops up in these stories. While Poirot may be dedicated to the cause of justice, creepy he is not.

Continue reading →

Doctor Who And… 42: The Time Warrior (29/6/1978)

Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Robert Holmes’ scripts for the 1973-4 TV serial

Book cover

The prologue, written by Robert Holmes, is brilliant: an insight into the final combat flight of Jingo Linx, with details of Sontaran battle strategy, a dogfight with Rutan warships and a grisly description of the recharge process that shows, in much more detail than any TV episode, the purpose of the probic vent. But there’s no dip in quality when Dicks takes over for the novel proper. As is usual, he seems to relish Holmes’ gallery of grotesques and the mordant dialogue. He also takes time to characterise the mindset of the story’s medieval folk, and the reality (to them) of tangible evil and the existence of demons.

Continue reading →