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Mid 1900s: Sail the Caribbean with Miss Marple because nothing bad can happen in Paradise can it?
Mid 1900s: Sail the Caribbean with Miss Marple because nothing bad can happen in Paradise can it?
Ah this is the life! Basking in the Caribbean sunshine away from the murderous happenings of St Mary Mead….
Well, this is Miss Marple so you know before long someone somewhere is going to end up dead. She was really enjoying the man’s company as well – why just a day before he is found dead, she was talking to him and he was telling her a story of a murder. Just as he was going to take out a photograph and show her, his face changed as if he’s seen a ghost. The next day he is found dead.
The man? A retired general by the name of Major Palgrave. The Carribean takes on a dark tone and the clouds are gathering…
Mr Palgrave opens the novel by recounting a tale about Kenya. He lived there fourteen years of his life and so he is keen to tell Miss Marple all about his life there. She sees him as a elderly man like so many others of his occupations and generation that he needs to offload and relive the days of glory. Not that Miss Marple is not still enjoying the holiday by looking out to sea whilst being careful to cock her head to one side in sympathy. She drifts in and out of her thoughts which take her back and forth to St Mary Mead.
It’s Raymond who’s suggested this trip. Miss Marple even goes so far as to worry herself about the difficulties of travel, the distance, the expense and the abandonment of St Mary Mead itself!
She tries to have a holiday – the hotel is ornate, there’s dancing ager dinner and a gorgeous dining room. The guests in the hotel are quite a mix and it’s a great hobby for Miss Marple to regard each one in turn – people watching we might call it, but to her it’s ‘ an insight in to the human condition’. Mr Rafiel for example is a rude guest at first but is very helpful when it comes to it.
The Palm Hotel in the West Indies is home. Well that’s until the poor major is found dead and then it becomes Marple HQ. This is of course a fictional hotel and island. The television show was actually filmed in Cape Town South Africa.
2000s: Kyle inherits a house only to find something is still living there….
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