First full-length Miss Marple novel in 50 years sends her to the Alps

A writer commissioned to produce the first full-length Miss Marple novel since Sleeping Murder, published posthumously 50 years ago in October after Agatha Christie wrote it just before she died, has set the new case in the Alps. Christie introduced Jane Marple in the 1927 Christmas magazine story The Tuesday Night Club and in book form in 1930’s The Murder at the Vicarage; the character appeared in 12 of her 66 detective novels and 20 of her 160 short stories. More than 1bn Christie books have sold in English and another 1bn in translation. Sophie Hannah was commissioned by Christie’s family in 2013 for authorised Poirot continuations; no one had been asked to write a new Miss Marple until now.