The Moving Finger

By Agatha Christie,

Book cover of The Moving Finger

Book description

A malicious letter A tragic death A village filled with suspects

Nothing ever happens in the sleepy village of Lymstock.

Until letters accusing the villagers of unspeakable acts start to appear.

They try to dismiss them as a cruel hoax, but then one of the recipients is found dead. The…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Moving Finger as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A stand-alone installment of the Miss Marple series, I chose The Moving Finger for this list because it involves letters and neighborhood gossip.

Set in the seemingly placid village of Lymstock, the story unfolds when a series of vicious poison-pen letters shatter the village’s quiet charm. The situation escalates when one recipient commits suicide, a death that requires justice.

Miss Marple enters the plot as the vicar’s houseguest and ultimately outsmarts the mystery. Her strength comes from the way others dismiss her as a harmless little old lady. To most she is unimportant and insubstantial, if they notice her at…

Book cover of The Spanish Diplomat's Secret

Nev March Author Of The Spanish Diplomat's Secret

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author History lover Scriptwriter Reader Nature lover

Nev's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

An entertaining mystery on a 1894 trans-Atlantic steamship with an varied array of suspects, and a detective who must solve his case in six days to prevent international conflict.

Retired from the British Indian army, Captain Jim is taking his wife Diana to Liverpool from New York, when their pleasant cruise turns deadly. Just hours after meeting him, a foreign diplomat is brutally murdered onboard their ship. Captain Jim must find the killer before they dock in six days, or there could be war! Aboard the beleaguered luxury liner are a thousand suspects, but no witnesses to the locked-cabin crime.

Fortunately, his wife Diana knows her way around first-class accommodations and Gilded Age society. But something has been troubling her, too, something she won’t tell him. Together, using tricks gleaned from their favorite fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Jim, and Diana must learn why one man’s life came to a murderous end.

By Nev March,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spanish Diplomat's Secret as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Spanish Diplomat's Secret, award-winning author Nev March explores the vivid nineteenth-century world of the transatlantic voyage, one passenger’s secret at a time.

Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Lady Diana Framji are embarking to England in the summer of 1894. Jim is hopeful the cruise will help Diana open up to him. Something is troubling her, and Jim is concerned.

On their first evening, Jim meets an intriguing Spaniard, a fellow soldier with whom he finds an instant kinship. But within twenty-four hours, Don Juan Nepomuceno is murdered, his body discovered shortly after he asks rather urgently to…


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