It was published after her death, but it was written years before, so must be read with this in mind, otherwise it'll seem full of mistakes; the most important of them is, to me, that Miss Marple is going around working in the garden and running up stairs, when already in 4.50 from Paddington she said she couldn't do it anymore and asked a girl to look around for her while she stayed sit at home.
Having said that, it's a nice story but the main investigators are a young couple, nice good people but very bad detectives that don't even see the obvious. The story is interesting, about Gwenda and her husband coming to England after she lived many many years in New Zealand. She buys a house and soon starts having strange feelings as if she knew it already, and it turns out that she had lived there for a short period of time when she was 3. A strange memory makes her think that a woman was killed in that house 18 years ago and they start investigating despite Miss Marple advised them not to. She's so worried about them that she keeps close and helps them sort it out. They should have had suspects as to the real murderer much sooner, especially after Miss Marple gave them a clue about those letters, but they didn't understand because they trusted him without doubt. The fact that they didn't even suspect him made space for a lot of boring conjectures about other possible suspects, and I admit I was a bit bored so I skipped a few lines because it was nothing more than a recap of things already said and also because they were nothing more than "maybe he was.. so maybe he came.. and maybe he did..." without any real, tangible reason to think that he actually did. They based all their thoughts on something that someone told them, without for a moment stopping to ask themselves if they were told the truth...
Spoilers are unavoidable now.
Gwenda's father had married Helen after his first wife had died. When she disappeared he apparently went mad saying he had killed her, but everybody believed she had run away with another man. Gwenda and her husband Giles start asking questions, and Helen's brother Dr. James Kennedy volunteers to talk to them saying he hasn't heard from Helen in a long time, but that she ran away with a man because she always liked men too much, that she wasn't a serious girl, that she wrote letters to him that proved she had not been murdered, and gives them those letters with a copy of Helen's handwriting to prove that they were authentic, then tells them of other men who at that time were in love with Helen: Jackie Afflick,a young man who he disapproved of; Walter Fane, a lawyer who she almost married but then left to marry Gwenda's father, and Erskine, a married man with an unhappy marriage. Gwenda and Giles believe all he tells them, and start from there to make their theories, never for a moment stopping to think of him. The only woman alive that actually met her and worked for her talks kindly of Helen, saying she was a good and serious young woman who loved Gwenda. Afflick tells them he wasn't in love, they were just having fun and that he pitied her; Erskine tells them that they fell in love but did nothing about it because he was not only married but with kids, and also that she had previously thought about marrying Fane only to escape from home because Helen was unhappy there. Fane tells them that it's an old story and he doesn't know much about it, and although it seems like a lie that he doesn't care, they give the wrong importance to a fact they learn: he always looks quiet and passive, yet as a child he once attacked his brother who had broken something important to him: they take this as proof that he could be violent, but never stop to consider how different it is to act on the heat of the moment when you're a child compared to thinking about it for months as an adult and then act violently after so much time. They think these three are the only suspects because they never doubt Dr. Kennedy, not accepting for true what the others say if it's in contrast with what he told them! But there's no reason for them to think Dr. Kennedy more reliable than the others. They don't know him as they don't know them. Erskine tells them she was unhappy at home and they don't ask themselves why. He tells them they never even considered running away, neither of them, and Afflick tells them Helen and him never really dated, just went out as friends to have fun, but our couple still thinks Helen was an easy girl who liked men too much because Kennedy had told them so. The more they learn the less he looks trustworthy, but they don't realise this. For this reason I skipped a part at the end when they theorize which of those three men is more likely the murderer. They were not even considering Kennedy!
The business with the letters should have been obvious though. Kennedy gave them a letter Helen wrote to him after leaving her husband, and also a piece of paper with a proof of her handwriting, and after having it analized Giles had proof of its authenticity, which could only mean two things: either Helen was never killed in that house, but went away and wrote that letter, or the letter is a fake and that means that the piece of paper used to authenticate it must be a fake too! And Kennedy gave it to them! There was absolutely no reason for believing him as blindly as they did!
ITA addio Miss Marple (goodbye Miss Marple, although it doesn't feel at all like her last case...)
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