Alan Bradley / Agatha Christie Comparison
by Judy-Lee Jensen, Library Assistant
Alan Bradley and Agatha Christie have more in common than murder in the English Countryside. With both authors, among scenes of bucolic gardens, herbaceous borders, and aristocratic landholdings, the reality of murder provides a grisly reminder that death can intrude harshly with a body in a cucumber patch (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) or on the library hearthrug (The Body in the Library). Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce may be at opposite ends of the age spectrum, but both have an uncanny knack for solving crime with razor sharp female intuition, uncanny native intelligence, and unswerving belief in British resourcefulness. Miss Marple has a unique and massive knowlege of common garden insecticides and poisons which has served her well in crime solving and Flavia's knowledge of chemistry specializing in the use of poisons, gives her a depth of understanding that a university don might envy.
Both characters have a somewhat bipolar relationship with their local constabulary. Both Inspector Hewett with Flavia and Sir Henry Clithering with Miss Marple have come to have a grudging but healthy respect for these female protagonists with their uncanny ability to solve crime. Sir Henry often said of Miss Marple that she had a mind like a kitchen sink under the cloak of Victorian respectability and Inspector Hewett is quietly flabbergasted with Flavia's ubiquitous presence at key points in his investigation with pertinent information to help solve the crime.
It is interesting that while Flavia and Jane Marple both love the men in their lives; Miss Marple her nephew Raymond, and with Flavia her father, they outwardly give respect and let them be the authority figures, while quietly working behind the scenes to "save them from themselves" as it were. Alan Bradley and Agatha Christie believe innately in British male stoicism but seem to rely on females to actually get the down and dirty details that will eventually solve the crime at hand. Flavia and Miss Marple are able to connect trivial village happenings and characters and accurately deduce how they weave into the pattern of the crime. They both love their family retainers, Flavia her father's factotum Dogger and Miss Marple her various maids she has nurtured over the years, but both have some regard for class distinctions, and a subtle but palpable regard for the superiority of the British Aristocracy. Both have an abhorrence for physical affection, (Please, we're British) yet still waters run deep, and their love is demonstrated by their take action philosophy with regard to solving crime.
Alan Bradley and Agatha Christie are true examples of why the classic British murder mystery has set the gold standard for the genre.
