The Body in the Library
Dust-jacket illustration of the US (true first) edition. See Publication history (below) for UK first edition jacket image.
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Dodd, Mead and Company |
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Publication date
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February 1942 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 245 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| Preceded by | N or M? |
| Followed by | Five Little Pigs |
The Body in the Library is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1942 and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in May of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). The novel features her fictional amateur detective, Miss Marple.
Gossington Hall is the residence of the very conventional retired Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife Dolly. One morning, the maid finds a dead body in the library. It is a young woman, flashily dressed and made up, with platinum blonde hair, and completely unknown to the Bantrys. She was strangled. The Colonel calls the police, and Mrs Bantry calls her old friend, Miss Marple.
The police investigators include Inspector Slack and the Chief Constable of "Radfordshire", Colonel Melchett.
No one can identify the dead girl. Suspicion falls on a neighbour, Basil Blake, an artist who designs movie props for "Lemville Studios", and whom Colonel Bantry dislikes. Blake had been dating a platinum blonde, Dinah Lee, but she is very much alive.
The autopsy reveals that the girl died between 10 PM and 12 AM the previous evening, had been heavily drugged, and despite her tarty appearance, was a virgin.
Ruby Keene, an 18-year-old dancer at the Majestic Hotel in nearby Danemouth, is reported missing. Josie Turner, Ruby's cousin, and dancer and bridge hostess at the Majestic, identifies the dead girl as Ruby. Josie had hurt her ankle, and had Ruby fill in for her as hostess and exhibition dancer with Raymond Starr, the hotel's tennis and dance instructor. Ruby went missing the previous night; Josie had to perform the midnight exhibition dance with Raymond, despite her ankle.
However, Josie had not called the police to say Ruby was missing; that was Conway Jefferson, a wealthy old man staying at the Majestic who had become fond of Ruby. Several years before, Jefferson lost his wife Margaret, son Frank, daughter Rosamund, and both legs in an airstrike; he is now accompanied by Rosamund's widower Mark, Frank's widow Adelaide, and Peter, Adelaide's young son from her first marriage. Mark and Adelaide are his heirs.
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