Marple: Twelve New Stories is a 2022 collection of short stories featuring Agatha Christie's detective Miss Marple.
The stories are commissioned by Agatha Christie Limited, which has licensed Christie's stories and characters since her death.
Each story is written by a different author.
Marple: Twelve New Stories contains examples of the following tropes:
- Blackmail Backfire: In "The Second Murder at the Vicarage", Bill Archer is discreetly poisoned by a mushroom stew after he finds evidence of an adulterous affair and tries to blackmail the couple concerned.
- Everybody Lives: Miss Marple's stories tend to be Always Murder, but in "Miss Marple Takes Manhattan", nobody's killed and what seems to be an attempted murder is just an attempt to sabotage a theatre production, with nobody seriously hurt. Miss Marple herself notes how unusual that outcome is at the end of the story.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: In "A Deadly Wedding Day", Louise McCracken plots an Inheritance Murder, intending to kill her half-sister Marie by poisoning a dessert at Marie's wedding. However, the plates are exchanged and Louise fatally poisons herself instead.
- Let Off by the Detective: In "The Disappearance", Michael Barnsley-Davis was killed by Miss Marple's friend Dolly Bantry. Michael threatened to murder Dolly to stop her revealing his role in a young woman's suicide. Miss Marple doesn't tell the police, lets Michael's disappearance remain a mystery, and suggests that Dolly should spend a little time abroad.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: In "The Second Murder at the Vicarage", Bill Archer is poisoned by foraged mushrooms in his stew. Miss Marple, who knows Archer was a skilled poacher and forager, realises that someone else added them to poison him.
- Medication Tampering: In "The Murdering Sort", Josiah Westover is poisoned by the 'heart pills' he's taking as part of his Secret Test of Character scheme. Subverted in that the pills he's taking are just sugar, not medication, but the tampering is still deadly.
- Posthumous Character: Early in "A Deadly Wedding Day", a guest is poisoned at the titular wedding. All that's revealed before she collapses is that she had an altercation with the bride, which none of the other characters heard. The rest of the story explains who she was and why she died.
- Ret-Canon: The poacher Archer had no first name given in Agatha Christie's novel The Murder at the Vicarage, but was named Bill in the BBC adaptation. In "The Second Murder at the Vicarage", he's now named as Bill.
- Robbing the Dead: In "The Open Mind", Cuthbert Cayling is killed so that the killer can access the Bedlington-Bomarsand family tomb when he's interred. It initially seems that they're stealing 17th century letters regarding Oliver Cromwell, buried with one of the bodies. The final twist is that they're actually planting high quality forgeries, faked evidence to be discovered later as part of a larger plan.
- Self-Made Orphan: In "The Unravelling", Eric Weaver murders Martin the pigman, after he argues with Weaver's father. Martin is Eric's biological father, and Miss Marple thinks Eric guessed this and assumed Martin had appeared to wreck the Weavers' marriage. What Eric didn't know was that "Martin" was actually the real Mr Weaver, as the man who returned after World War II was an imposter.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: The titular murder at the start of "The Second Murder at the Vicarage" is that of Mary Hill, who was the vicarage maid during The Murder at the Vicarage. Her boyfriend Bill Archer, another character who survived the original novel, is revealed to have died a week before the new story starts.
- Taking the Heat: In "The Unravelling", Mr and Mrs Weaver are suspects in the murder of Martin the pigman. Neither is guilty, but both know that their son is the killer, so they decide to let the police focus on them instead, hoping that there's insufficient evidence for a conviction.
