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Last week, I reviewed one of Agatha Christie’s most popular novels, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, to celebrate its 100th birthday. Marg joined the blog tour for The Way We Are Now by Julie Houston, a novel that she enjoyed for its setting in the 1980s. Heather joined an on-line science book club based in the UK. It didn’t end up working for her, but she had a fascinating adventure with it. Heather also shared her Top Ten Tuesday list of bookish places because it included British locations. The Book Review Guide published an entry on 1984 by George Orwell, with details to help you decide whether this is a book that’s going to work for you.

Fifty years ago, next month, Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple’s Last Case was published following author Agatha Christie’s death earlier that year.

Christie wrote the last case for each of her main detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in the 1940s and stored them in a bank vault. In 1975, knowing that she had written her last book at age 85, she authorized the publications of Curtain (the final Poirot novel) in 1975 and Sleeping Murder the following year.

Sleeping Murder has been adapted for UK television twice. First, in 1987, it was the sixth episode in the 12-episode series, Miss Marple starring Joan Hickson. Second, in 2006, it was the first episode of the second season of Agatha Christie’s Marple, starring Geraldine McEwan.

With the miracle of modern streaming, I was able to watch these two adaptations back-to-back on BritBox, so that I can compare the two.

If you’re looking for authenticity to the original novel, you definitely want the older version which stuck closely to the plot. Gwenda and her husband are newly arrived in the fictional town of Dillmouth on the coast of Devon. They purchase Gwenda’s dream house, but immediately she begins to see odd and disturbing visions. Fortunately, Miss Marple is visiting a friend in Dillworth so she is able to bring her observational skills to solve the case.

To jazz things up, the 2006 version added an emerging romance and an entire theatrical troupe to the plot! I didn’t think the additions were necessary to the already perfectly acceptable mystery, but I allowed myself to enjoy the story on its own terms and it does work on that level. In this version, we never see Gwenda’s fiancé because he assigned the purchase and setting up of a house to her and to his assistant. The clues and structure of the mystery remain intact, but a number of red herrings and a lot of details about the original mystery are made more colorful and fanciful due to the historical presence of a variety show that used to play in the beach town each summer.

I liked them both, although my inner image of Miss Marple is Joan Hickson so the Miss Marple series always feels more authentic and not just because that series was committed to the original plots of the novels.

Have you seen these or read the novel? What did you think?