Nemesis is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie (1890–1976), first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 5 November 1971 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later the same year. The UK edition retailed at £1.50

Maurice Richardson in The Observer of 31 October 1971 said of Miss Marple in this story, "The showdown when, alone in bed, quite defenceless with not even a knitting-needle, she is confronted by a brawny great fiend of a butch, is devilish fine. Not one of her best, perhaps, but remarkably inventive, quite worthy of the Picasso of the detective story."

The Daily Mirror of 28 October 1971 said, "With this first-rate story Dame Agatha triumphantly returns to the traditional detective novel after a spell of psychological suspense."

Robert Weaver in the Toronto Daily Star of 4 December 1971 said, "Christie richly deserves the loyalty offered up to her by devotees of the traditional mystery. She is readable and ingenious, and in Nemesis she has going for her the amateur lady sleuth Miss Jane Marple deep in a murder case as she tries to carry out a request that comes in effect from beyond the grave. Beyond 80 Miss Christie remains unflagging."

Robert Barnard commented about the plot that "Miss Marple is sent on a tour of stately gardens by Mr Rafiel." His generally negative view of the novel was tersely expressed in one sentence: "The garden paths we are led up are neither enticing nor profitable. All the usual strictures about late Christie apply."

Homosexual themes

The novel deals with the unspoken nature of "female love". Clotilde Bradbury-Scott is depicted as an elderly gentlewoman, living with her two sisters. Upon meeting Clotilde, Miss Marple senses Clotilde's real nature. Yet Miss Marple seems blinded from seeing the truth in this case, due to her own expectations concerning gender.

Miss Marple thinks to herself that Clotilde "would have made a magnificent Clytemnestra – she could have stabbed a husband in his bath with exultation." Yet, she dismisses this thought. Clotilde has never married, and Miss Marple thinks Clotilde incapable of murdering anyone but her version of Agamemnon.

In her conclusion, Miss Marple seems to view the passionate friendship between women as just a phase in their life, a phase destined to end when one of the women chooses a male lover instead. This was a choice typically open to the younger woman in a same-sex relationship. This was a conventional view, held by people of Marple's generation and social class.

  • June Whitfield as Miss Marple
  • George A. Cooper as Mr Rafiel
  • David Swift as Professor Wanstead
  • Louie Ramsay as Lavinia Glynne
  • Thelma Barlow as Anthea Bradbury-Scott
  • Mary Wimbush as Clotilde Bradbury-Scott
  • Jill Balcon as Miss Temple
  • Desmond Llewelyn as Archdeacon Brabazon
  • Tricia Hitchcock as Miss Cooke
  • Delia Lindsay as Miss Barrow
  • Molly Gaisford as Joanna Crawford
  • Jane Whittenshaw as Cherry
  • Geoffrey Whitehead as Mr Broadribb

Publication history

The novel was first serialised in the UK weekly magazine Woman's Realm in seven abridged instalments from 25 September (Vol 27, No 702) to 6 November 1971 (Vol 27, No 708), with illustrations by Len Thurston. In North America the novel was serialised in the Star Weekly Novel, a Toronto newspaper supplement, in two abridged instalments from 16 to 23 October 1971, with each issue containing the same cover illustration by Laszlo Gal.

References

Bibliography

  • Nemesis at the official Agatha Christie website
  • Nemesis at the new official Agatha Christie website
  • Analysis of novel by A N Wilson in The Daily Telegraph