Nemesis (Christie novel)
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Unknown |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Published | November 1971 Collins Crime Club (UK) 1971 Dodd, Mead and Company (US) |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 2656647 |
| 823/.9/12 | |
| LC Class | PR6005.H66 N4 1971b |
| Preceded by | Passenger to Frankfurt |
| Followed by | The Golden Ball and Other Stories |
Nemesis is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie (1890–1976) and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1971 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at £1.50 and the US edition at $6.95. It was the last Miss Marple novel the author wrote, although Sleeping Murder was the last Christie novel to be published.
Miss Marple first encounters Jason Rafiel in A Caribbean Mystery, where they solve a mystery. Miss Marple receives communications from him, sent posthumously, setting up the plot of this novel.
Miss Marple receives a post card from the recently deceased Jason Rafiel, a millionaire whom she had met during a holiday on which she had encountered a murder, which asks her to look into an unspecified crime; if she succeeds in solving the crime, she will inherit £20,000. Rafiel has left her few clues. She begins by joining a tour of famous British houses and gardens with fourteen other people, arranged by Mr Rafiel prior to his death. Elizabeth Temple is the retired school headmistress who relates the story of Verity, who was engaged to Rafiel's ne'er-do-well son, Michael, but the marriage did not happen. Another member of the tour group, Miss Cooke, is a woman she had met briefly in St Mary Mead.
Her next clue comes from Lavinia Glynne; Rafiel had written to Mrs Glynne and her two sisters before his death, suggesting that Miss Marple spend the most physically challenging few days of the tour with them. Miss Marple accepts Lavinia's invitation. She then meets Lavinia's spinster sisters, Clotilde and Anthea Bradbury-Scott. On talking with the servant, Miss Marple learns that Verity joined the family after both her parents died, becoming quite attached to Clotilde. Verity is dead now, brutally murdered, and Michael Rafiel is in prison.
On the morning of her return to her party, Miss Marple learns that Miss Temple had been injured by a rockslide during the previous day's hike, and was lying in a coma in hospital. The group stays over an extra night to wait for news from the tour guide about Miss Temple's health. Professor Wanstead, a pathologist and psychologist interested in criminal brains, had been instructed by Mr Rafiel to go on the tour. He had examined Michael Rafiel at the request of the head of the prison where Michael was incarcerated; he came to the conclusion that Michael was not capable of murder. He tells Miss Marple how uninterested Michael's father seemed. He mentions a missing young local woman, Nora Broad, and he fears she will be found murdered. Wanstead takes Miss Marple to see Miss Temple; in a moment of consciousness, Miss Temple had asked for Miss Marple. Miss Temple wakes long enough to tell Miss Marple to "search for Verity Hunt", and dies that night. The three sisters extend their invitation to Miss Marple when she decides not to return to the tour, and she promptly accepts. That night, Mrs Glynne tells the story of Verity in their household to Miss Marple.
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