Murder at the vicarage

This is just a bit of fun. Given that the rights to Agatha Christie's first Marple novel, Murder at the Vicarage are now (as of Jan 1 2026) in the public domain, I thought I would take some wicked liberties.

I have asked my lalamo (Large Language Model, LLM) friend, Google Gemini, to rewrite chapter one of the genre-setting novel, just to see what it comes up with. I am not going to publish this verbatim, as I suspect that my clumsy friend's authoring skills will leave much to be desired. I am instead going to rewrite the chapter, as best I can, to make it worth the reading. I may also consider writing my own novel based on the Christie approach.

Why am I doing this? As a learning exercise, of course. All part of my quest to learn more about using lalamos and to learn more about my craft as an author. Can we use AI to aid learning? Of course we can, and this is one of the benefits brought by the current wave of generative applications such as Gemini. Why not try your own rewrite of this, or any other out-of-copyright story, with or without AI help, and see what you can learn by doing so? You don't have to use the given text (which will be a poor substitute at best) but it might spark some ideas for something you can use to get you going on your next novel or short story. Actual challenge details at the end of this story.

I have yet to read Murder at the Vicarage, or any other Christie novel, and perhaps I should, though I suspect it will be a hard slog on my part.

Meanwhile, here is the full text of...

Murder at the Vicarage: Chapter one

By Agatha Christie

Text kindly provided by Gemini, which takes full responsibility for any inaccuracies in the transcription

It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed upon the Tuesday after Easter at the Vicarage. The garden was looking its best; the daffodils were over, but the tulips were out, and the herbaceous border was beginning to show promise.

I was sitting in my study, and I confess I was feeling a little complacent. I had just finished my sermon for the following Sunday, and I felt that it was a good sermon—one of my best. It was on the text: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

I was interrupted by my wife, Griselda. Griselda is much younger than I am, and she is also very pretty. I sometimes wonder why she married me. She says it was to see if she could make me lose my temper. So far she hasn't succeeded, but I must admit she comes very near it sometimes.

“Len,” she said. “I’ve got a piece of news for you. Colonel Protheroe is dead.”

I looked at her in amazement.

“Colonel Protheroe dead?” I repeated.

“Yes,” said Griselda. “He was found in his study this morning. He’d been shot.”

“Shot?” I gasped. “Who shot him?”

“Nobody knows,” said Griselda. “But everyone is saying that it must have been a very good thing for the world in general.”

“Griselda!” I said. “You shouldn't say things like that.”

“Why not?” said Griselda. “It’s true. Everyone hated him. You know they did.”

I could not deny it. Colonel Protheroe was not a popular man. He was the local magistrate, and he was also a churchwarden, but he was a hard man, and he had a very high opinion of himself.

“And now,” said Griselda, “there’s going to be a real murder mystery in St. Mary Mead. Won’t it be exciting?”

“Exciting?” I said. “It’s horrible.”

“Of course it’s horrible,” said Griselda. “But it is exciting. I wonder who did it.”

Editor's comment

"I wonder who did it." This is the classic start to the classic approach to a murder mystery adventure, as championed by the classic authoress, Agatha Christie. The classic start to a whodunnit. Love her or hate her, every crime mystery author follows the Christie approach to the job of writing their novel. You just can't get away from it. From the inciting incident, usually the crime or the knowledge of the crime itself, to the drawing room dénouement, we have all been there. Sometimes striding boldly through the plot development, sometimes tip-toeing our way here and there, sometimes pretending we are not there at all.

The challenge

Why not have a go? Write a short story or chapter one of a murder mystery. It does not have to be the crime of the century, it could just be a mundane killing of the kind you see given a few lines in a regional newspaper. Take your lead from Christie, if you want. Use AI to help with an outline if you want. Do leave a link to your story in comments and I will award at least one $5 to one or more of those who join in the fun. Please indicate if and how you have made use of a lalamo.

Happy detecting folks