Book of the Month: The Thirteen Problems

One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes. The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death…As each of her guests is mystified by the sinister tales they tell one another, the company is inclined to forget their elderly host. But there is a ruthless precision in Miss Marple’s pursuit of the killers in each tale… and a few surprises in store for The Tuesday Night Club.

This month we delve into the Miss Marple short story collection, The Thirteen Problems, and join The Tuesday Night Club as they tell tales of unsolved mysteries whilst Miss Marple uses her detective powers to unravel them. The Thirteen Problems was first published as a collection in the UK in 1932 and later under a different title, The Tuesday Night Murders, in the US in 1933. These were some of the first Miss Marple stories that Agatha Christie wrote and the first in the collection, The Tuesday Night Club, was Miss Marple's debut in print when it was published in The Royal Magazine in 1927. The original dustjacket blurb of the collection reads, 'Each story is a little masterpiece of detection, clever and ingenious, with just that added twist that only Agatha Christie can give.'

Did you know that the story line of the eighth short story, The Companion, was later reworked and expanded on to form the basis for the full length novel, A Murder is Announced?

Keep an eye on the Agatha Christie Facebook and Twitter pages throughout the month of May as we will be asking questions about The Thirteen Problems.