The Moving Finger

by Agatha Christie

Book 4 in the Miss Marple Mysteries series.

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Audio available 4.4

Recovering from an accident, Jerry Burton moves with his sister Joanna to the village of Lymstock, where anonymous letters accuse residents of sexual and social misconduct. When one recipient dies and another murder follows, the campaign can no longer be dismissed as malicious gossip.

Miss Marple arrives through a local connection and studies how the letters exploit the intimate knowledge of a small community. Against the constrained atmosphere of wartime Britain, the novel explores loneliness, changing gender expectations and the difference between scandal intended to wound indiscriminately and a message designed to prepare for a specific crime.