Agatha Christie a long-running character in Christie's works, appearing in 33 novels and 54 short stories. Miss Jane Marple, introduced in the short-story collection "The Thirteen Problems" in 1927, was based on Christie's grandmother and her "Ealing cronies". Both Jane and Gran "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right." Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories. During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, "Curtain" and "Sleeping Murder", intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Both books were sealed in a bank
The Body in the Library (film) 1986 as a part of PBS's "Mystery!". In his review in "The New York Times", critic John J. O'Connor wrote: Miss Christie would no doubt approve of Joan Hickson, the veteran British character actress who plays Miss Marple... This BBC/Arts & Entertainment co-production offers an especially good example of Agatha Christie in adaptation. The characters are nicely realized and the suspense holds. Miss Hickson is lovely, neither as awesome as Miss Rutherford nor as overly cute as Helen Hayes. And the supporting cast is admirable, particularly Gwen Watford as Dolly and David Horovitch as Inspector Slack. As someone notes about