I enjoyed a delightful romp through the Bertram Hotel closely resembling Brown’s Hotel in London. The fascinating journey into the bygone Edwardian Era demands a trip to London to enjoy the past era of niceties. But trouble and mayhem interrupt Jane Marple’s vacation with mail train robberies and relationship problems. The story centers on a young lady, Elvira Blake, an heiress waiting to turn twenty-one, and her wayward and famous mother. Elvira falls in love with an undesirable racing car driver and rogue, Ladislaus Malinowski. A clery member, Canon Pennyfather, descends into the story as a forgetful, old man. Where does Agatha find these names? This story has very little violence except for one death. Of course, Miss Marple, hears and sees everything and therefore provides valuable clues to solving the mystery of the murder and the train robberies. A great story and glance at a glorious time in the past. ( )

Miss Marple Goes Back
Review of the Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers hardcover edition (2007) of the original Collins Crime Club (UK) hardcover (1965).

Miss Marple sighed.
‘It seemed wonderful at first—unchanged you know—like stepping back into the past—to the part of the past that one had loved and enjoyed.’
She paused.
‘But of course, it wasn't really like that. I learned (what I suppose I really knew already) that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back—that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street, isn't it?’

At Bertram’s Hotel finds Miss Marple on yet another vacation, this time at a period hotel in London which she had originally visited in her childhood. She plays more of a cameo role in the investigation though, acting as a sort of insider agent for Chief Inspector Fred Davy who is on the trail of a criminal conspiracy, could it possibly be centred around a luxury period hotel? Along the way a guest at the hotel goes missing and a hotel worker is murdered.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/At_Bertram%27s_Hotel_First_Editio...
The front cover of the original 1965 Collins Crime Club (UK) hardcover edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

Although it didn't feel like a regular Miss Marple story, I still enjoyed At Bertram's Hotel for the period atmosphere and the hotel setting.

The Berengaria Ease of Solving Rating* (with 1 being the easiest, and 10 being impossible).
The overall conspiracy = 3. This is basically a gimme, as it is revealed early on that the police are investigating a criminal network. Only the exact people involved aren’t immediately apparent, although they are somewhat guessable.
The murder = 10. This just came out of nowhere. You didn’t have enough information to know the basis for the crime until the actual reveal.

* A new rating scale for mysteries invented by my GR friend Berengaria, see her review of Agatha Christie's A Pocket Full of Rye for its first use🕵️‍♀️.

Trivia and Links
At Bertram’s Hotel was adapted twice for English language television. Both of the TV adaptations make considerable changes to the original plot. I did not find any free trailers or postings of either of them, but they are both available on the Britbox streaming service here in Canada.

The first TV adaptation was as part of the BBC's Miss Marple (1984-1992) series as Episode 7 in 2 parts in 1987, which starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.

The second TV adaptation was as part of ITV's Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004-2013) reboot series as Season 3 Episode 1 in 2007 which starred Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. ( )

Weird one where a murder is sort of thrown in near the end and the killer is very obvious but ultimately it doesn't really matter. The rest is sort of about a crime syndicate kind of? Which is most of the denouement but the scheme... doesn't really make any sense at all. It describes a system which would vastly complicate their crimes. Again it's well hinted at! But it just seems dumb.

And yet... I couldn't help but like it because it's so much about coming to terms with the golden age mystery simply not being real any more. It's not a deep meditation on the subject, but it's clearly something that occupied a lot of her mind at the time (The mirror cracked from side to side also features a lot on this). The social makeup of Britain has changed so much that the characters that dominated her interwar books can only exist in a hotel where they're set dressing for tourists. And they're doddering, nostalgic fools. Miss Marple is still sharp, obviously, but even with her there's a sense that she's coming to terms with a world she doesn't belong in any more. It makes perfect sense that this is the penultimate Marple book - it really feels like a goodbye to the whole concept.

A pretty poor mystery and obviously not a great literary masterpiece, but if you enjoy the genre I think there's something here that will leave you feeling Wistful ( )

The large-scale plot (wide-ranging crime spree masterminded by ... well, a mastermind of course!) is a bit of a non-starter, but the atmosphere of Bertram's Hotel more than makes up for it. The small-scale plot involving the heiress is rather well done.

Although... the doddering elderly clergyman with a shock of white hair, who finds himself adrift in the modern world and gets into trouble by forgetting what day it is and missing his flight to Lucerne... is 63. Sixty-three! About 20 years younger than I expected. I haven't met a doddering 63 year old ever. What changed since 1965? Has NHS done a great job of maintaining the health of its citizens into their later decades, or what? ( )

While Miss Marple is present through most of the book, she doesn't really contribute to the solution in the way I expected. This reread has made me reconsider my rating. In particular, I didn't care for the ending. ( )