[Review] Mark Aldridge: 'Marple: Expert on wickedness'

Mark Aldridge is a bit obsessed with Agatha Christie. 'Marple: Expert on wickedness' (2025) is his follow up to 'Agatha Christie on Screen' (2016) and 'Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World' (2022).

Mark Aldridge’s latest Christie study, 'Marple: Expert on wickedness', explores the twelve novels, twenty short stories, numerous stage, screen and radio adaptations, of the character from her first appearance in a short story of the 1920s onwards. He gives a short description of every one of them, gives the dates of their publication or production, and the reception of the public of those installments.

Drawing on a wealth of his knowledge of the 'Queen of Crime', as well as on Christie’s own words and on interviews with those who have adapted or starred in her work, he offers a balanced assessment of each story, showing how it fits into Christie’s life and contributes to her reputation, and writing with a wit and a fondness for anecdote that are perfectly suited to the character he’s celebrating.

"Miss Marple insinuated herself so quietly into my life that I hardly noticed her arrival", Agatha Christie wrote in her autobiography, beautifully encapsulating not just the character’s creation, but the subtle, unshowy way in which this most atypical of detectives has earned (and kept) her enduring place in readers’ affections.

The review
The book is mostly divided into decennia (The 1940s, The 1950s, etc.) because, well, you have to have some chapters to delineate the productions. Aldridge even gives the reader a helpful note at the very beginning of his book: 'Although arranged chronologically, this book is designed so that you may read it however you choose—whether from cover to cover, or by dipping into sections that you particularly want to find out more about.'

And therein lies the problem: the book lacks the novelty and warmth of the autobiography of Laura Thomson and the ever-present joie de vivre and insights of that of Lucy Worsley 'Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman'. 'Marple: Expert on Wickedness' gives me the feeling of an encyclopedia: all is there, but is it dull and a bit lifeless.

And the print quality is simply not good enough for all those tiny images of covers that are splinkled thoughout the book.

Still, I can understand the conclusions of other reviewers, who mostly seem to think that Mark Aldridge's book is both informative and entertaining. And yes, 'Marple: Expert on wickedness' is unashamedly a celebration. While Aldridge doesn’t shy away from criticizing the less successful Marple novels, his whole book is underpinned by an enormous respect for Christie’s achievements and for the detective genre as a whole.

Lucy Foley's Marple
And I already hate 'Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel' (2026) written by Lucy Foley, where Miss Marple 'is enjoying the refined luxury of the Grand Alpine Hotel: a stunning winter playground, high in the Swiss Alps. But when someone is found dead, and a snowstorm descends, it falls to Marple to decipher the most chilling of mysteries'. Miss Marple hated going abroad and would certaily not go to the Swiss Alps. This premisse looks suspiciously similar to the television adaptation of Agatha Christie's short story 'The Labours of Hercules' (Season 13, Episode 4), where Poirot faces similar hardships. The book is rather prematurely included into [Review] Mark Aldridge: 'Marple: Expert on wickedness'.