Feb 08, 2005 05:33 PM
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(Updated Feb 08, 2005 06:04 PM)
The word ?Nemesis? conjures many images in one?s mind and in today?s Internet era ?it is a software utility and also a famous rock band but in Greek mythology, Nemesis is the goddess of divine justice and vengeance. Her anger is directed toward human transgression of the natural, right order of things and of the arrogance causing it.
Nemesis pursues the insolent and the wicked with inflexible vengeance which has acquired her an apt epithet ''she whom none can escape''.
In this book, Nemesis refers to a provincial old lady with twinkling eyes! Yes, it is Miss. Jane Marple we are talking about.
The demise of Mr.Rafiel does not perturb Miss.Marple but the aftermath of it does. This is how Miss.Marple describes her brief acquaintance with Mr.Rafiel:
?Ships that pass in the night And Speak to each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness?.
Mr.Rafiel leaves her a fortune, which she can claim in case of mission accomplished. As to the mission itself there seems to be no clue.
All she has in her hand are the tickets for the tour of the ?Famous Houses and Gardens of Great Britain?.
So many unanswered questions:
· What is it that Mr.Rafiel wanted her to investigate?
· Why is she sent on the tour?
· Is there a clue with her co-passengers?
. Or is there a link between the places she is going to visit and the crime she is supposed to investigate?
Slowly the pieces of the puzzle appear:
one of the passengers, Miss. Elizabeth Temple tells her ?I knew a girl once. A girl who had been a pupil of mine at Fallowfield, my school. She was no actual relation of Mr.Rafiel, but she was at one time engaged to marry Rafiel?s son?
Professor Wanstead, a criminal psychologist surprises her by acknowledging that he knew Miss Marple would be on this tour.
The three sisters of the Old Manor House who invite her to stay with them -Lavincia Glynne, Clotilde Bradbury Scott and Anthea Bradbury Scott and were guardians of the girl, Verity Hunt.
The plot thickens when Miss.Marple discovers that Rafiel?s son is under imprisonment for the murder of Varity Hunt, the girl he promised to marry. Somehow the answer seems to lie with the sisters of the Old Manor House, which seemed to be impregnated with sorrow.
This book is eloquent as the work of a longtime master of the craft of Crime. In terms of the suspense factor it bears marks of a typical Agatha Christie book but is very unique in some aspects. The setting of the book is in no particular place since Miss.Marple is on tour. Also initially the reader wonders about the actual crime under investigation. And finally the motive of murder itself- very unconventional and sensational.
This was suppossedly the last book written by AC though it was not the last one published.By casting Miss Marple as the Greek Goddess of divine retribution in this novel, Christie crowns her with a final triumph, quite similar to Poirot?s heroic exit from his brilliant career of crime investigation in The Curtain.
