Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1976 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed for £3.50

Christie's notebooks are open to interpretation in hindsight; John Curran argues that Sleeping Murder was still being planned at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. His basis is the many changes to the title of the novel, since other authors had used her first title ideas: one of Christie's notebooks contain references to Cover Her Face (second title) under "Plans for Sept. 1947" and "Plans for Nov. 1948", suggesting she was planning to re-read and revise the manuscript.

Previous biographers, who did not have access to the Notebooks, state that Sleeping Murder was written in 1940.

Nevertheless, support for the story being first written in 1940 is found in the correspondence files of Christie's literary agents: Christie's royalty statement for 15 March 1940 states that the secretarial agency hired by Edmund Cork to type up Murder in Retrospect (the first title of the manuscript) charged £19 13s. 9d.

The last Marple novel Christie wrote, Nemesis, was published in 1971, followed by the last Poirot novel Christie wrote Elephants Can Remember in 1972 and then, in 1973, her very last novel Postern of Fate. Aware that she would write no more novels, Christie authorised the publication of Curtain in 1975 to send off Poirot. She then arranged to have Sleeping Murder published in 1976, but she died before its publication in October of that year.

By contrast to Poirot, who dies in the final novel, Miss Marple lives on. This last published novel is set in 1944, but follows novels set in later years, which show Miss Marple to have aged. In Nemesis, Miss Marple does no gardening on the advice of her doctor, showing her to be in more fragile health. In Sleeping Murder, she is frequently pulling bindweed from the neglected garden at the Reeds' home, but that may be a cover for searching for the site of the victim's burial. There is a reference to a wireless set as a desired purchase by Lily, were she to receive money by responding to the newspaper notice seeking her; this reinforces the story's setting being in the 1930s, as the author intended in her final revisions (done in 1950).

Gavin Lambert in the New York Times Book Review of 19 September 1976 said: "Displays Agatha Christie's personal sense of what she calls 'evil,' of murder as an affront and a violation and an act of unique cruelty... When Marple tells us here that 'it was real evil that was in the air that night,' Christie makes us feel her curious primitive shiver. It is certainly the most interesting aspect of her personality and probably accounts for her extraordinary success."

Robert Barnard: "Slightly somniferous mystery, written in the 'forties but published after Christie's death. Concerns a house where murder has been committed, bought (by the merest coincidence) by someone who as a child saw the body. Sounds like Ross Macdonald, and certainly doesn't read like vintage Christie. But why should an astute businesswoman hold back one of her better performances for posthumous publication?" H. R. F. Keating included the novel in his list of "100 Best Crime and Mystery Books". It was one of the bestselling books of 1976.

Adaptations

Television

Sleeping Murder was filmed by the BBC as a 100-minute film in the sixth adaptation (of twelve) in the series Miss Marple starring Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. It was transmitted in two 50-minute parts on Sunday, 11 January and Sunday, 18 January 1987. This adaptation is fairly true to the plot of the novel.

Adapter: Ken Taylor

Director: John Davies

Cast:

  • Joan Hickson as Miss Marple
  • Geraldine Alexander as Gwenda Reed
  • John Moulder Brown as Giles Reed
  • Frederick Treves as Dr James Kennedy
  • Jean Anderson as Mrs Fane
  • Terrence Hardiman as Walter Fane
  • John Bennett as Richard Erskine
  • Geraldine Newman as Janet Erskine
  • Jack Watson as Mr Foster
  • Joan Scott as Mrs Cocker
  • Jean Heywood as Edith Paget
  • Georgine Anderson as Mrs Hengrave
  • Edward Jewesbury as Mr Sims
  • David McAlister as Raymond West
  • Amanda Boxer as Joan West
  • Esmond Knight as Mr Galbraith
  • John Ringham as Dr Penrose
  • Eryl Maynard as Lily Kimble
  • Ken Kitson as Jim Kimble
  • Kenneth Cope as Jackie "JJ" Afflick
  • Peter Spraggon as Detective Inspector Last
  • Sheila Raynor as shop assistant
  • Donald Burton as Bosola (onstage)
  • Struan Rodger as Ferdinand (onstage)
  • Gary Watson as Major Kelvin Halliday

The novel was adapted as a Syrian drama series, "جريمة في الذاكرة" (Crime in the Memory), which was broadcast in 1992.

The novel was also adapted as a set of four episodes of the Japanese animated television series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, airing in 2005.

A second British television adaptation, set in 1951, was transmitted on 5 February 2006 as part of ITV's Agatha Christie's Marple, starring Geraldine McEwan and Sophia Myles as Miss Marple and Gwenda, respectively.

Adapter: Stephen Churchett

Director: Edward Hall

Cast:

  • Geraldine McEwan as Miss Jane Marple
  • Russ Abbot as Chief Inspector Arthur Primer
  • Geraldine Chaplin as Mrs Fane
  • Phil Davis as Dr James Alfred Kennedy
  • Dawn French as Janet Erskine
  • Martin Kemp as Jackie Afflick
  • Aidan McArdle as Hugh Hornbeam
  • Paul McGann as Dickie Erskine
  • Sophia Myles as Gwenda Halliday
  • Anna-Louise Plowman as Helen Marsden
  • Peter Serafinowicz as Walter Fane
  • Una Stubbs as Edith Pagett
  • Julian Wadham as Kelvin Halliday
  • Sarah Parish as Evie Ballantine
  • Emilio Doorgasingh as Sergeant Desai
  • Harry Treadaway as George Erskine
  • Richard Bremmer as Mr Sims
  • Harriet Walter as the Duchess of Malfi (onstage)
  • Greg Hicks as Ferdinand (onstage)
  • Mary Healey as Shop Assistant
  • Helen Coker as Lily Tutt
  • Nickolas Grace as Lionel Luff
  • Vince Leigh as Jim Tutt
  • Darren Carnall as Dresser

The tenth episode of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie was an adaptation of this novel. It aired in 2012.

Radio

The novel was adapted as a 90-minute play for BBC Radio 4 and transmitted as part of the Saturday Play strand on 8 December 2001. June Whitfield reprised her role as Miss Marple (she played Miss Marple in several radio adaptations in the 20th century). It was recorded on 10 October 2001.

Adapter: Michael Bakewell

Producer: Enyd Williams

Cast:

  • June Whitfield as Miss Marple
  • Julian Glover as Dr Kennedy
  • Beth Chalmers as Gwenda Reed
  • Carl Prekopp as Giles Reed
  • Hilda Schroder as Mrs Hengrave
  • Carolyn Pickles as Aunt Alison and Mrs Erskine
  • Joan Littlewood as Edith
  • Derek Waring as Richard Erskine
  • Ioan Meredith as Walter Fane
  • Michael N. Harbour as Jackie Afflick
  • Ewan Bailey as Inspector Last

Publication history

In the US the novel was serialised in Ladies' Home Journal in two abridged instalments from July (Volume XCIII, Number 7) to August 1976 (Volume XCIII, Number 8) with an illustration by Fred Otnes.

References

  • Sleeping Murder at the official Agatha Christie website
  • Wiki collection of quotations from Sleeping Murder