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Cover of The Thirteen Problems
The early cases · the late 1920s and early 1930s, in St. Mary Mead

The Thirteen Problems

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The first stories: around the table, friends tell crimes and the elderly aunt solves every one

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Do you need to read it?

Not required. It's left out of the main story but is part of the full chronological order.

Where it falls in the order

  • Main storynot included
  • Chronological1 of 14
Spoilers for this title

Quick recap

Thirteen short stories, almost all built the same way: a group gets together, each person tells a crime only they know the answer to, and the rest try to guess. First comes the Tuesday Night Club, at Miss Marple's house: her novelist nephew Raymond West, the painter Joyce, former Scotland Yard chief Sir Henry Clithering, a lawyer and a clergyman. She gets every case right by comparing the culprits to people from the village. Later, the game moves to the Bantrys' house. The last story is a real case in St. Mary Mead: a young woman drowns, Miss Marple writes the killer's name on a slip of paper, and Sir Henry proves she was right.

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3 what changed on screen

What changed on screen

  1. ChangeThe Blue Geranium gets an episode

    ITV turned "The Blue Geranium" into a full episode in 2010, with Julia McKenzie. The core plot stayed, with a lot added on top.

    source ↗
  2. ChangeStories mixed together

    "The Thumb Mark of St. Peter" was combined with Greenshaw's Folly in a 2013 episode, and "The Herb of Death" was worked into ITV's The Secret of Chimneys.

    source ↗
  3. Behind the scenesMiss Marple's debut

    The first story, "The Tuesday Night Club," ran in The Royal Magazine in December 1927. It was Miss Marple's first appearance, before any novel.

    source ↗
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