Papyrus to Datapad

The moving finger is interesting as it is billed as a Miss Marple novel, and indeed Miss Marple does play a significant role in solving the mystery, but more than two thirds of the story is over before she makes her first appearance.

As with all Christie novels, the real star of the novel are the people and the place, living and breathing as real as fiction people can ever be. The core puzzle of the novel involves a series of nasty anonymous letters being sent out to everyone in a village, and the deaths that result. Is it a spiteful writer, taking out their hate on the world at large? Or is something more sinister at work.

There isn't much to say that I haven't already said in earlier Marple books, Similar themes on the evils of village life and human nature abound, and she does what she does with a panache i've never found in another mystery author.