Marple: Twelve New Stories: A brand new collection featuring the Queen of Crime’s legendary detective Miss Jane Marple, penned by twelve bestselling and acclaimed authors

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All of them five stars. These three seemed to have a little more substance and depth than the others, no mean feat in a short story! The others ranged from 3 - 4 stars, with only one at 2.5 stars. A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell - Marple enlists the help of Miss Bella to get to the bottom of a murder at a wedding reception. This one was, easily one of my favourites. It's a well thought out and executed mystery, and the addition of Miss Bella brings out Miss Marple's best observational skills. 4/5

Only three stories in this collection were worth reading. The ones that were fine enough to read were written by Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, and Karen M. McManus. The other nine didn’t even have a well written or good enough mystery that made reading the story worth my time.

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In Miss Marple’s Christmas by Ruth Ware (4.5/5) the theft of a valuable string of pearls during a Christmas gathering at Gossington Hall puts a damper on the festivities. This story is truly reminiscent of Agatha Christie's signature style in terms of a closed room setting, multiple suspects, and a surprising revelation. A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell (4.5/5), has Miss Marple teaming up with her friend Miss Bella whose niece’s wedding becomes the scene of a murder. In The Jade Empress by Jean Kwok (4/5) we find Miss Marple on a cruise to Hong Kong during which two murders occur and the daughter of one of the victims is the accused. It is up to Miss Marple to figure out what truly happened. In The Murdering Sort by Karen M. McManus (4.5/5), Miss Marple and her great–grand-niece Nicola West work together to solve the mystery behind the murder of the grandfather of one of Nicola’s school friends. This story is set in the United States.

While some of the stories may have been “fine”, all this collection of stories did was prove that Miss Marple could only be written by Agatha Christie. Per usual, I am going to rate each story individually so you all can see how I got to my group rating for the collection.A Deadly Wedding Day was the first story where I actually felt anything for the characters. It's read by Cathy Tyson, and she has a voice that's just made for audiobooks. I could listen to her forever. My only niggle was that in all the adaptations (audiobook, radio dramatisation and TV adaptations) of A Caribbean Mystery, the island of St Honoré is pronounced as "Hono-ray". Here, it's pronounced "Hono-ree". It's a VERY minor point but it did annoy me.