 Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition |
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Not known |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
| Publication date | November 1971 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-002-31563-7 |
| Preceded by | Passenger to Frankfurt |
| Followed by | Elephants Can Remember |
Nemesis is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1971 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at £1.50. It was the last Miss Marple novel the author wrote, although not the last published.
Contents |
Plot summary
Receiving a letter from the recently deceased Mr Jason Rafiel, a millionnaire she encountered during a holiday on which she encounters a murder, Miss Marple learns that he has asked her to look into a crime. Rafiel, however, has left her few clues, and has failed to tell her when or where the crime was committed and who was involved. Miss Marple's first clue from Mr Rafiel is in the form of a tour of famous houses and gardens of Great Britain, that Mr Rafiel organised for her, prior to his death. She is accompanied on the trip by fourteen other people, at least one of whom she suspects to be related to her enquiries. She learns that one of her companions, Elizabeth Temple, is the retired headmistress of a girl who was engaged to Rafiel's son, Michael. She also discovers that another of her company, Miss Cooke, is a woman she meets earlier in the book and discusses gardening with. Her next clue comes in the form of a woman named Lavinia Glynne; Rafiel had written to her and her two sisters before his death, suggesting that Miss Marple spend the most challenging few days of the tour with them. Miss Marple accepts Lavinia's invitation, assuming it to be the next part of Mr Rafiel's instructions. She then meets Lavinia's sister, Clotilde and Anthea Bradbury-Scott and immediately feels there is something odd about Anthea. On talking to the servant, Miss Marple learns that the girl engaged to Michael Raffiel was the orphaned daughter of two of Clotilde's friends and, after her parents deaths, had come to stay with Clotilde. On the morning of her return to her party, Miss Marple is told by Emlyn Price, another of her comapnions, that Miss Temple had been hit by some rocks and had to be rushed to hospital. As she leaves the sisters, she wonders if Clotilde makes gestures to Lavinia not to invite her to stay another night. Then, after her party disbands to fill the time until their guide returns with news, Miss Marple begins talking with Professor Wanstead, a pathologist and psychologist interested in the different types of criminal brains, and learns that he was instructed by Mr Rafiel to go on the tour. He then informs Miss Marple that he examined Michael Rafiel, when asked to do so by a friend who felt Michael had not killed a girl, and that, after study, he too came to this conclusion. He also tells her how uninterested Michael's father seemed. Professor Wanstead then takes Miss Marple to see Miss Temple, under the rouse of visiting a church, who requested to talk to her in a brief moment of consciousness. After a period of waiting, Miss Temple wakes again and talks to Miss Marple. She tells her find out about Verity Hunt. Miss Temple dies soon afterwards. On her return to the tour, the three sisters extend their invitation to Miss Marple again, who promptly accepts. She soon learns that Verity Hunt is the girl that Clotilde Bradbury-Scott looked after. After the inquiry into Miss Temple's death, Miss Marple is vistsed by Archdeacon Brabazon, who was a friend of Miss Temple's. He says that she was planning to vistit him. He then tells Miss Marple that he was going to marry Verity Hunt and Michael Rafiel, but had been sworn to secrecy about the matter by Verity. While he disapproved of teh secrecy and of Verity marrying Michael, he agreed to marry them because he could see that they were in love and he was most surprised when they did not turn up on the arranged day for their marriage. Soon, the tour moves on, though Miss Marple decides to stay another few nights with the three sisters, Professor Wanstead travels to London by train on an errand for Miss Marple and Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke decide they would like to visit a nearby church. Later that evening, Miss Marple talks with the sisters about what she thinks may have happened and, while they are doing so, Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke appear, to talk to Miss Marple. They stay for a time and are then invited back for after dinner coffee that evening. As they talk about Miss Temple, Miss Marple says that she thinks it was Joanna Crawford and Emlyn Price that pushed the boulder, and that their stories were fabricated. Just as Miss Marple is about to drink the coffee given to her by Clotilde, Miss Cooke suggests that she doesn't, as it will keep her up all night and Miss Marple instead asks for some warm milk. The two ladies soon depart, thought each forgets an item and has to return for it. At two o'clock the next morning, Clotilde opens the door to Miss Marple's room and comes in. Miss Marple soon reveals that she knows that Clotilde murdered Verity and hid her beneath the broken greenhouse, because she could not stand to see Verity love someone more than her and would be prepared to kill her, just to ensure she didn't marry Michael Rafiel. She also reveals thte she knows that Clotilde killed another girl, Nora Broad, in a very violent manner, dressed her in Verity's clothes and hid her thirty miles away so that she could identiy the body as Verity's and have Michael imprisoned for her brutal murder. Just as Clotilde is about to advance towards her, Miss Marple takes a blows on a whistle, resulting in Miss Barrow appearing in the doorway and Miss Cooke stepped out of the wardrobe, as they are private agents, employed by Mr Rafiel for Miss Marple's protection. In the end, Miss Marple collects her money and Michael Rafiel is set free. It is also revealed that Clotilde drank the poisoned milk, which she had intended Miss Marple to drink, killing herself.
Literary significance and reception
Robert Barnard: "Miss Marple is sent on a tour of stately gardens by Mr Rafiel. The garden paths we are led up are neither enticing nor profitable. All the usual strictures about late Christie apply."[1]
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
BBC 'Miss Marple' Series
Nemesis was filmed by the BBC as a 100-minute film in the eighth adaptation (of twelve) in the series Miss Marple starring Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. It was transmitted in two 50-minute parts on Sunday, February 8 and Sunday, February 15, 1987. Adapator: TR Bowen
Director: David Tucker
Cast:
Barbara Franceschi as Miss Kurnowitz
Frank Gatliff as Jason Rafiel
Peter Tilbury as Lionel Peel
John Horsley as Professor Wanstead
Jane Booker as Miss Cooke
Alison Skilbeck as Miss Barrow
Valerie Lush as Lavinia Glynne
Margaret Tyzack as Clothilde Bradbury-Scott
Anna Cropper as Anthea Bradbury-Scott
Jackie Downey as Florence
Jonathan Adams as Carter
Diana Agnew as Receptionist
Oliver Parker as London Policeman
David Blake Kelly as Tramp
Bruce Payne as Michael Rafiel
Roger Hammond as Mr Broadribb
Patrick Godfrey as Mr Schuster
Ann Queensberry as Miss Wimpole
Joanna Hole as Madge
Helen Cherry as Miss Temple
An adaptation was produced again in 2006 with Geraldine McEwan as part of the third season of her Marple series.
References
- ^ Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie - Revised edition (Page 201). Fontana Books, 1990. ISBN 0006374743
External links
Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: Nemesis at the Internet Movie Database
