“There’s a body in the library.” When the respectable Mr. and Mrs. Bantry wake up, they find a dead girl named Ruby Keene in their house. What follows is the chaos of protecting reputations, finding another girl’s body in a burnt car, figuring out who killed these girls, and why. The police can only figure out so much, so Miss Marple is called to the scene to solve the case. With her eagle eyes and all-knowing brain, Miss Marple is sure to crack the case.

When Mrs. Bantry wakes up, her maid tells her that there is a body in the library. After debating with her husband about whether are not there really is a body,  they get up and go downstairs. In the library, there is a body of a dead girl. Mr. Bantry calls the police and Mrs. Bantry call her friend Miss Marple. She asks her to come over to the house. The doctor comes and looks at the body and says the time of death was between ten and midnight. Then, they get a call from the police saying a girl named Ruby Keene That looks like the dead body has been reported missing from a hotel. The girl’s aunt comes over and says that the body is Ruby’s. Then Ruby’s aunt, Josie, says Ruby, who was a dancer at a hotel, did two dances every night. The previous night, she did the first dance, had dinner with some friends, and went up to her room. When it was time for the second dance, she didn’t come down and when someone looked in her room, she wasn’t there. Miss Marple and the police go to the hotel where Ruby was staying to interview Ruby’s friends, Mr. Jefferson, Mrs. Jefferson (Mr. Jefferson’s dead son’s wife), and Mark Gaskell(Mr. Jefferson’s dead daughter’s husband). All tell the same story of watching Ruby dance, eating dinner with her, Ruby going to bed, playing a few round of bridge with Josie, looking for Ruby, and then going to sleep. Mr. Jefferson says he called the police in the morning when Ruby still hadn’t turned up. The police suspect Mark Gaskell of the crime because,  Mr. Jefferson changed his will to leave Ruby a large sum of money, and Mark was broke because of a gambling problem. Unfortunately for the police, Mr. Gaskell was with Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson for almost the whole night. Then, the police get notice of a girl whose body was found in a burnt car. The girl, Pamela Reeves, had gone to a meeting with a bunch of friend the night before and then gone to Woolworth’s by herself and disappeared. Miss Marple thinks that these girls were murdered by the same person because they both mysteriously disappeared on the same night.  Will Miss Marple figure out who killed Ruby Keene and Pamela Reeves and if they were killed by the same person? Will this complex mystery be solved? Read The Body in the Library to find out.

I recommend this book to boys and girls 11 years and older. In the book, there is some cursing (mostly minor words), talk of people having affairs and being drunk, and some violence. A girl is found dead, strangled, and her body is described. Another girl is found dead in a burnt car. Also, there is some tricky vocabulary. The world séance. Séance means a meeting to receive communications from spirits. There is also the word indiscreet. Indiscreet means not showing good judgment.

Overall, this book was pretty good. There were many details, so you could imagine the scenes. The characters were fairly likable and the plot was ringing. I thought it was interesting that Miss Marple solved the case when she wasn’t the main detective in the story. There was a surprising twist at the end that I thought made the book better. Although it wasn’t my favorite Agatha Christie book, I am still glad I read it.