Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel: a Miss Marple Mystery by Lucy Foley (ARC review)

I’d never read any of Lucy Foley’s other work, and requested this ARC from Netgalley (and publisher Harper Collins UK) simply because of the Agatha Christie branding and my curiosity to see what a contemporary author might do with Miss Marple.

It’s 1950 (ish?) and Miss Marple is accompanying her friend Mrs Bantry to a swish Swiss hotel. It seems unlikely that two elderly ladies would make such a trip in the middle of winter—it’s hardly going to be good for their rheumatism, is it? But still, that’s the set-up, and Mrs Bantry has a paid companion to take care of things, a young woman called Diana Glass.

At the hotel, they encounter a cast of characters, including a young war hero Tory MP and his wife, a Hollywood actress, some nuns, an old wartime friend of the MP, and various other sorts who may be background characters or something more sinister.

Diana Glass is one of the main point of view characters, and narrates a lot of chapters from her position as a sort-of outsider. Not really wealthy enough to mix with this crowd, younger than her travelling companions, and carrying some sadness inside her. Other narrators include the MP’s wife Catherine Narracott, Sylvia Sinclair, the actress, and Bruno Crane—the MP’s brother-in-arms from the War.

There are four privileged viewpoints, though I feel like adding that Diana Glass’s chapters do tend to be longer than the others. Miss Marple, as she tends to do (e.g. in A Pocket Full of Rye), is mainly there in the background until she does her thing.

I found the first half of this a bit of a drag. I would say it picks up around the 80% mark, and then it rolls easily to its conclusion fairly entertainingly. Part of the drag is that I don’t think the multiple narrators technique really works here. There are stylistic differences, so you can just about tell the difference between them as you’re reading, but I kept coming back to that narratology question: who narrates, and from where?

I just wasn’t entirely convinced.

As to the Marple element, it felt that Miss Marple was phoning in her lines from other novels, or from the many television adaptations there have been. As a radio aficionado, I of course kept hearing June Whitfield’s voice.

As to the murder mystery, I did guess that one of the characters wasn’t what they seemed to be, and I also guessed what they really were. As to the rest of it, it was quite clever, but it didn’t quite gel for me. It felt sketchy and distant at times, and I never quite engaged with it—until the last 20% or so, at least. And at least there is a murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, which is more than we could say about my previous ARC.

[I should also add that the Kindle version of the ARC that I was reading had a missing chapter heading at a crucial point. A point which made the Marple solution to the mystery seem more confused than it was. I checked the PDF version in the Netgalley app, and the heading was there, so it was just in the Kindle edition, which is a shame. I went back and forth several times, trying to identify the precise point at which a different POV character would intervene.]

Locked doors, missing brothers, and secrets behind every wall. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley had me gripped from start to finish. Multi-cast audio brilliance + Parisian suspense = perfection. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Read the review now on Views She Writes. #ThrillerReads #LucyFoley

https://viewsshewrites.com/the-paris-apartment/

Novo livro de Lucy Foley, "O ritual da Meia-Noite", traz suspense sombrio ambientado em hotel de luxo. Com data de publicação para fevereiro de 2025! #GeekPopBooks #LucyFoley

https://geekpopnews.com.br/o-ritual-da-meia-noite-de-lucy-foley-ja-esta-em-pre-venda/

Lucy Foley: Jahti

Pitkästä aikaa kirja, joka ei missään vaiheessa ärsyttänyt tai turhauttanut. Asetelma on monista suljetun alueen murhamysteereistä tuttu. Joku kuolee, epäilyjen määrä on rajattu, kenellään ei aluksi vaikuta olevan syytä tappaa ketään, mutta itse kustakin alkaa tulla esiin erilaisia asioita kirjan edetessä. Pidin siitä, että kerrontaa oli useammasta näkökulmasta. Ihmisistä tuli esiin niin positiivisia kuin negatiivisiakin puolia. Muutama hahmo jäi etäisemmäksi sivuhahmoksi, olisi ehkä ollut kiva jos heidänkin elämää / ajatuksia olisi avattu enemmän. Muutama juonenkäänne oli arvattavissa, mutta silti hahmojen salaisuudet kuoriutui esiin mukavasti vähitellen ja oli mielenkiintoista mitä kaikkkea kenestäkin tulee esiin. Pidin kokonaisuudesesta. Tätä oli miellyttävää lukea.

#lukeminen #kirjamastodon #kirjat #LucyFoley #Jahti #dekkari

Universal International Studios Developing Lucy Foley’s Novel ‘The Midnight Feast’ For TV; Sue Naegle Attached
#Acquisitions #Books #News #LondonBookFair #LucyFoley #SueNaegle #TheMidnightFeast #UniversalInternationalStudios

https://deadline.com/2024/03/lucy-foley-midnight-feast-universal-international-studios-tv-series-1235865645/

"The Guest List" is a book that didn’t grab me at first. In fact, for the first few chapters, I thought I was in for an excruciating read. But once the character introductions are out of the way, Foley gives us a fast-paced web of a story that is almost impossible to put down.

#bookreviews #thegguestlist #lucyfoley #reading

https://www.thomashbrand.com/blog/the-guest-list-by-lucy-foley

Firsts of #2023:

First game: #DragonAgeOrigins
First book: #TheHuntingParty by #LucyFoley
First film: #TheMenu
First TV show: #TheBear
First song: Oh My Heart by #REM

#Bibliophile #MovieNerd