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Last week, I reviewed a documentary where Sir David Suchet (the actor famous for his portrayal of Hercule Poirot) followed Agatha Christie’s footsteps on an around-the-world tour. Tina reviewed Forever Home by Graham Norton and didn’t like it as much as other books by this author.

In 1925, Agatha Christie published her fifth novel, The Secret of Chimneys. To celebrate the 100th anniversary, I watched the 2010 ITV adaptation as part of their Marple series, with Julia McKenzie playing the lead role of Miss Marple.

The Wikipedia article complains that there is not much resemblance between the adaptation and the original, starting with the fact that Miss Marple didn’t make her first appearance in the world until December 1927 when she was featured in the short story “The Tuesday Night Club” published in The Royal Magazine.

The Secret of Chimneys was not a Miss Marple story.

I enjoyed it, anyway. This was Season 5, Episode 2. I streamed it on BritBox.

Chimneys is the name of an aging grand house at a time when lots of properties were in periods of transition. All kinds of people seem to have designs on it — a woman from National Heritage who wants to turn it into a hotel, a foreign visitor who behaves as a prince of a bygone era, and an officious suitor of one of the daughters of the house. A gunshot in the night signals that the game is afoot.

By Allan Engelhardt – Hatfield House, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

The house Chimneys was played in all its grandeur by Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, and still owned by his descendants.

If any of this sounds familiar, it might be because I wrote a post about the film locations of Shakespeare in Love last year and Hatfield House was one. That was only a brief appearance, though, so we get a much better look in this show.

Have you seen The Secret of Chimneys? Or read the book? What did you think?