Books: Marple Is Willing

SLEEPING MURDER by AGATHA CHRISTIE 242 pages. Dodd, Mead. $7.95.

It is not for nothing that Dame Agatha Christie used to be called the mistress of the last-minute switch. For years before her death a year ago at 85, her publishers let it be known that they held two novels "in a vault"—naturally—for posthumous publication. The rumor ran that, not wanting any literary hack to mishandle her characters, Agatha Christie had left books satisfactorily killing off her legendary sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Sure enough, Poirot came to a violent end in Curtain,...

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