Sleeping Murder (1976) was not only Miss Marple’s final case but also Agatha Christie’s. Published after the Queen of Crime’s death in 1976, the manuscript of this significant epilogue had been stored away for decades, together with that of Curtain, the finale of her other great detective, Hercule Poirot.
In Curtain (1975), Poirot faces down a killer-by-proxy who persuades others to commit murder by applying perfectly calibrated psychological pressure. Since the killer never commits a crime in person, he remains safe from the law. Poirot compares the killer’s crimes at one remove to Iago’s deadly tempting of Othello to murder Desdemona in Shakespeare’s great tragedy. Working with a similar blend of Jacobean tragedy and criminal psychology, in Sleeping Murder Christie has Jane Marple solve a crime that has lain hidden for many years.
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