I am not normally a short story person. However, upon discovering that one of ITV’s adaption for Christmas was going to be The Blue Geranium, I wanted to see first of all whether it was actually a Miss Marple story and did my mum have the book. It was and my mum did have it – then that I actually discovered it was a short story.
It is one of the thirteen stories in ‘The Thirteen Problems’ and a nice short one, which I have read twice in the last couple of days. Miss Marple is called upon to sort out a ghost mystery that Colonel Bantry has got. Bantry’s friend George Pritchard’s sick wife had a passion for fortune tellers and the light and when one visit results in finding out “Beware of the Full Moon. The Blue Primrose means warning; the Blue Hollyhock means danger; the Blue Geranium means death”. Every full moon, Mrs Pritchard waits and witnesses the changing of the wallpaper with each flower in turn going blue. Is it something ghostly or does Miss Marple have the recipe for the result?
The ITV have adapted it for their Marple series with Julia Mackenzie as the infamous lady detective to be shown on Wednesday 29 December – look out for my review of this as well. On reading the cast list, there seems to be lots of ‘new’ characters.
I am now also tempted to take a foray into the other Miss Marple short stories, and see if rather than for sort of research purposes, I may enjoy short stories.
The Book Jotter 