Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins, £22)
This, the first Miss Marple continuation novel, must have been a more difficult undertaking than a new Hercule Poirot; furnished by Christie with a cartoonist’s worth of exaggerated traits, the Belgian detective is surely easier to bring off the page than the unassuming but observant elderly spinster. Foley makes a commendable attempt, removing Miss Marple from the postwar austerity of St Mary Mead to the comparative luxury of the Swiss Alps. Although we are introduced to the unnamed body in the gondola cabin at the start, an immediate backward shift for a two-day lead-up means Miss Marple has little actual detecting to do until about halfway through the proceedings. Employing four narrators rather dilutes things, as well as necessitating a considerable amount of Murder of Roger Ackroyd-style withholding of information, but Foley’s Miss M shows her true colours when – of course – the hotel gets cut off from the outside world, and provides a solution worthy of the Queen of Crime herself.
The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett (Viper, £20)
Bestseller Hallett’s latest novel reunites us with amateur dramatic group the Fairway Players, first encountered in her debut novel, The Appeal. This time the play is The Hollow, dramatised by Agatha Christie from her novel of the same name, and, as before, lawyers Charlotte and Femi are called upon to review the mountain of emails, online messages and police reports through which the story is told, in order to figure out exactly what happened. All we know at the start is that “a brutal murder was committed” and Hallett slowly but expertly ratchets up the tension as clashes over casting, power plays, marital suspicions and distrust of newcomers create an entire gallery of potential murderers and murderees. The epistolatory method may not be for everyone, but Hallett excels at the form – these missives are variously funny, sinister, heartfelt and thoroughly human in their relatable pettiness – and the plot is well up to her usual standard.
