A Caribbean Mystery is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 16, 1964 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50. It features the detective Miss Marple.
Plot summary
"Would you like to see a picture of a murderer?", Jane Marple is asked by major Palgrave whilst on a luxurious holiday in the Caribbean. When she replies that she would like to hear the story, he explains. There once was a man who had a wife who tried to hang herself, but failed. Then she tried again later, and succeeded in killing herself. The man remarried to a woman who then tried to gas herself to death. She failed, but then tried again later and succeeded. Just as he is about to show her, he looks over her shoulder and is surprised and talks about another matter. In the morning, a servant, Victoria Johnson, finds him dead in his room. Doctor Graham concludes that the man died of long alcohol poisoning as these were the symptoms, and also there was a bottle of serenite on his table, a drug that soothes the pains of alcohol.
As Miss Marple goes deeper into the case convinced that the man was murdered, she wants to find the photograph that the man had. She asks doctor Graham to find it, saying it is a picture of her grandson. Meanwhile, she interviews other people, including Tim and Molly Kendall, the owners of the hotel, Mr Rafiel, an invalid and Esther Walters, the woman who pushes the chair, Lucky Dyson and her husband and Edward and Evelyn Hillingdon. On the beach when Mr Rafiel is going for a swim, Miss Marple sees Senora de Caspearo, a woman on holiday. She says that she remembers major Palgrave because he had an evil eye. Miss Marple corrects her that he actually has a glass eye, but she still says that it was evil.
Later on in the book, Victoria informs the Kendall's that she did not remember seeing the serenite on the man's table when she was tidying up in the afternoon. At night time, Victoria is found stabbed. Molly then starts having nightmares every night, and Miss Marple investigates why Molly is having nightmares. She finds Graham in the house looking at her cosmetics, saying that if belladonna was administered to it, then it would cause nightmares. The next night, Tim finds Molly unconscious on the floor, having taken an overdose of sleeping pills. The next day the police are involved, and a fellow cook, Enrico, tells them that he saw Molly Kendall holding a steak knife before going outside.Miss Marple also asks people if major Palgrave told people about the photo, and other people say that it was not a photo of a wife killer he said, but a husband killer and Miss Marple becomes confused.
At night, Tim wakes up the hotel as his wife, Molly, is missing. They eventually find her body, having been drowned in the pond. Miss Marple arrives and tells them that it is not Molly, but Lucky, the two looking quite similar. Miss Marple rudely wakes Mr Rafiel at night and tells him that they must prevent another death. They go to Tim and Molly Kendall's house and find Tim asking Molly to drink some wine as it will soothe her down. Miss Marple takes it away from him and gives it to Rafiel, saying that there was definitely a deadly narcotic in it. She explains that Tim Kendall is the wife killer that major Palgrave had a photo of, but saw him over Miss Marples' shoulder. Miss Marple thought that he saw someone on the right, where the Hillingdons and the Dysons were coming up the beach, but she remembered that he had a glass eye so could not see on his right, but only on his left where Tim and Molly were sitting. Tim was planning to kill his wife, but major Palgrave knew so he was killed, and Victoria remembered the serenite so she was killed. Tim put belladonna in Molly's cosmetics to have a reason for her to commit suicide. The way he killed his first wives were to look like they tried to kill themselves, but failed, and then they tried again and succeeded. When Molly accidentally took the sleeping pill overdose, Tim saw his chance and asked her to meet him by the pond. Molly, on her way to the meeting, had a scary vision from the belladonna and wandered off. Tim saw Lucky waiting there and mistook her for Molly and killed her. He was about to poison her when Miss Marple came in. Esther Walters suddenly falls to Tims' knees and says that Tim isn't a killer. Tim shouts at her if she wants to get him hanged, showing that Esther was in love with Tim and wished to marry him, and she would probably have been murdered had Miss Marple not been in the Caribbean.
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