This has been one of my favourites since I first read it as a young teenager – it has a particularly satisfying plot, very well-worked-out, and Marple is sharp and has sensible things to say. I recently did a blogpost on my favourite Agatha Christie novels, and I said about The Moving Finger: Observations: I’m collecting outbreaks of poison pen letters in books at the moment (see here and watch for more, or click on the label below), and this book really is Exhibit A.

‘If you lived in Lymstock, you would have on just a little powder to take the shine off your nose, and possibly a soupcon of lipstick – not very well applied – and you would almost certainly be wearing all your eyebrows instead of only a quarter of them.’

‘What’s wrong with that? I’ve got on my Country Tan Make-up No. Then, and only then, you’d sink into the background of Lymstock High Street, and not stand out as you do at present.’ I added: ‘Your face is all wrong, too.’ You’d wear a nice cashmere jumper matching it, and perhaps a cardigan coat, and you’d have a felt hat and thick stockings and old shoes. You ought to be wearing a very old tweed skirt, preferably of dirty green or faded brown. She had sheer silk stockings and some irreproachable but brand new brogues. It was skin-tight, and on her upper half she had a ridiculous little short-sleeved jersey with a Tyrolean effect. That is to say she was wearing a skirt of outrageous and preposterous checks.

Joanna was dressed (by Mirotin) for le Sport. I studied her critically and was not able to agree. ‘At any rate,’ she said, ‘I look all right, don’t I?’ Living in the country was like a new game to my attractive sister.

Agatha christie's the moving finger