The Thirteen Problems - Literary Significance and Reception

Literary Significance and Reception

The Times Literary Supplement of September 8, 1932 stated, "It is easy to invent an improbable detective, like this elderly spinster who has spent all her life in one village, but by no means so easy to make her detections plausible. Sometimes Miss Marple comes dangerously near those detectives with a remarkable and almost superhuman intuition who solve every mystery as if they knew the answer beforehand, but this is not often and Mrs. Christie shows great skill in adapting her problems so that she can find analogies in Miss Marple's surroundings." The review concluded that "in general these are all problems to try the intellect rather than the nerves of the reader."

Isaac Anderson in The New York Times Book Review's issue of March 5, 1933 said, "The stories are slight in structure, but they present some very pretty problems and introduce us to some truly interesting people. Miss Marple...is in a class by herself. She does not call herself a detective, but she could give almost any of the regular sleuths cards and spades and beat him at his own game."

The Scotsman of June 6, 1932 said, "The stories are worthy alike of Mrs Christie's powers of invention, and of the 'Crime Club' series in which they are issued."

The Daily Mirror of June 13, 1932 said, "The plots are so good that one marvels at the prodigality which has been displayed, as most of them would have made a full-length thriller."

Robert Barnard: "Early Marple, in which she solves cases described by other amateur and professional murder buffs gathered in an ad hoc club. Some engaging stories, but the sedentary format (cf. Orczy's Old Man in the Corner stories) becomes monotonous over the book length. Contains one of Christie's few excursions into the working class, Death by Drowning."