Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel
1950. The opulent Grand Alpine Hotel promises an unforgettable experience to its ill-assorted guests: an ambitious British MP and his repressed wife, a fading Hollywood star, a ramshackle friend of the politician, and a shambolic medical student. But when a guest enters a cable car alive, only to be found dead at the top of the slope, it’s another guest who comes to the fore – a seemingly innocuous, elderly spinster by the name of Miss Marple.
Published to mark 50 years since the publication of the last Miss Marple novel and written by a well-known contemporary crime novelist, this book should satisfy Agatha Christie fans. Miss Marple is recognisably herself: apparently doddery and prone to drifting into seemingly unconnected anecdotes, while remaining as sharp as a tack beneath the façade. (Personally, I kept visualising her as the late, great Joan Hickson.)
Similarly, her friend and travelling companion Dolly Bantry remains true to Christie’s depiction of her, and there are references to some of Miss Marple’s previous cases. Foley also cleverly makes use of some of the standard ploys that Christie resorts to in plotting her novels, though possibly there is more physical action than in most Miss Marple novels.
I admit I’ve never read a Christie novel without wanting to fling it across the room at the woodenness of her writing style. Mercifully, Foley is a far more accomplished author, whose characters are more rounded than Christie’s. Several of them narrate the novel, each in a distinctive voice and all of them concealing details from the reader.
For the most part, the period detail is handled well, though I did wonder about Mrs Bantry’s unmarried assistant being referred to at various points as either ‘Ms’ or ‘Madame’ Glass. That aside, this is an enjoyable mystery in the traditional style.
