The Mystery of the Acid Soil Avails Us of Jane Marple by Kate Mosse

Summary: The Mystery of the Acid Soil avails us of Jane Marple in a short story by Kate Mosse for Marple: Twelve New Mysteries copyrighted Agatha Christie Limited.

"God talks to human beings through many vectors: through each other, through organized religion, through the great books of those religions, through wise people, through art and music and literature and poetry, but nowhere with such detail and grace and color and joy as through creation. When we destroy a species, when we destroy a special place, we're diminishing our capacity to sense the divine, understand who God is and what our own potential is." Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., April 19, 2023, Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts.

“And there’s many people out there who want us to move to the next planet already and I’m like, hang on, let’s not give up on this planet yet," William, Prince of Wales, July 31, 2023, Sorted Food food truck, London, England, United Kingdom.

Kate Mosse abandons south France ambiances that abound in her Burning Chambers and her Languedoc trilogies for her native Chichester area in her short story The Mystery of the Acid Soil; Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020, 20:06, image of Kate Mosse, Pont Vieux, Carcassonne (Occitan: Carcassona; Latin: Carcaso), Aude department (Latin: Atax), Occitania region (French: la Région Occitanie; Occitan: Occitània; Catalan: Occitània), southwestern France: APB11, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

The Mystery of the Acid Soil avails us of Jane Marple in a short story by Kate Mosse for Marple: Twelve New Mysteries copyrighted by Agatha Christie Limited in the United Kingdom.

Agatha Christie Limited brings us the book Marple: Twelve New Mysteries, for its Marple Collection, beneath the William Morrow imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Sep. 13, 2022. The Mosse short-story contribution claims the 11th, next-to-last chapter, which she constructs as 10 configurations 299-300, 301-306, 306-313, 313-317, 317-320, 320-321, 321-323, 323-325, 326-327 and 327-333. The first division delivers us, in a Southern Railway services train carriage, Jane Marple, with gray wool destined, when done, as donnable by an unnamed great-nephew.

Jane exits the second Wednesday in August after enjoying Monday and Tuesday with her London-ensconced nephew, Raymond; the latter’s painter wife, Joan; and their two sons.

Ernest Kemp figures secondly as Royal Sussex Regiment fighter at the Battle of Arnhem (Netherlands, Sep. 17-26, 1944) and first-posting from Divinity School as Fishbourne-parish curate.

Jane thirdly gets together with Emmeline Strickert, whose pensionnat years in Florence, Italy, gestated their friendship and whose right-palm contracture surgery guides Jane to post-operative care-giving. She hears from Ernest secondly, Emmy thirdly, about Elizabeth, church-choir singer who hates her stepfather, Mr. Cooper, and headed London-ward Tuesday after her mother’s funeral Monday. Emmy and Jane itinerate from Drovers cottage to Salthill Road, where inhabitant Cooper interacts, fourthly, inimically, with the latter three days after Mrs. Cooper’s Monday funeral.

Emmy and Jane Marple, in The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse, journey, fifthly, to Dr. J. Barden’s Salthill Road residence three doors down.

The deceased doctor's far from kempt garden, house and shed kindle, fifthly, Emmy and Jane knocking at The Bull’s Head Public House next-door neighbor’s brick-house door.

The Barden legacy leaves Mrs. Hands, Barden charwoman and let-go Cooper daily, 50 pounds and such furniture as medical-specimen cabinet, swivel desk-chair and two waiting-room chairs. Mrs. Hands mentions, fifthly, Dr. Barden’s tragically meeting Mr. Cooper even as Jane mentions among her “closest friends” (Mosse:319) Sir Henry Clithering, former Scotland Yard Commissioner. Emmy and Jane navigate, sixthly, the main road, from Mrs. Hands’ minuscule cottage to the same-row cottage, second down, of Williams, “informal village TAXI service” (Mosse:321).

The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse observes, seventhly, Williams opining to Jane Marple about Barden obtaining impetigo from rubella, tetanus from soil-acidifying blades.

Emmy, Jane and Williams peregrinate, seventhly and eighthly, to Grove Park, whose rector, paralleling Mrs. Hands, presents Mr. Cooper, as Fishbourne Halt-Pittsburgh-Fishbourne Halt passenger every afternoon.

Emmy, Ernest, Jane and Williams quit, ninthly, Grove Park for Salthill Road, which quarters Elizabeth, who never qualified for or queued at Waterloo-area London Theatre Company. Williams renders, tenthly, Elizabeth, Emmy, Ernest, Jane and the rector to Drovers cottage, from which he perhaps reaches Bull’s Head and thereby receives no reward-related refreshment. The rector says, tenthly, “De mortuis nil nisi bonum” (Latin for “Of [the] dead nothing except good”), from which Jane perhaps strayed fourthly and strays tenthly.

The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse takes Jane Marple back to Jack Sanders terminating wife Gladys in the short story Keston Hotel Spa.

Chilon of Sparta (6th century BCE), as one of Seven Sages of Greece, adds perhaps authentic appeal as an actual authority from ancient ages. He advised against antipathetic associations by those living about those dead even as the largely fictitious audience in The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse affirm otherwise; Seven Sages (Latin: Septem sapientes) depicted in woodcut, sheet 60 verso, in 1493-printed illustrated encyclopedia, authored by German cartographer, historian and humanist Hartmann Schedel (Feb. 13, 1440-Nov. 28, 1514) in Latin as Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles) and in German, Schedelsche Weltchronik (Schedel's World History): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Kate Mosse abandons south France ambiances that abound in her Burning Chambers and her Languedoc trilogies for her native Chichester area in her short story The Mystery of the Acid Soil; Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020, 20:06, image of Kate Mosse, Pont Vieux, Carcassonne (Occitan: Carcassona; Latin: Carcaso), Aude department (Latin: Atax), Occitania region (French: la Région Occitanie; Occitan: Occitània; Catalan: Occitània), southwestern France: APB11, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kate_Mosse_à_Carcassonne_.jpg

Chilon of Sparta (6th century BCE), as one of Seven Sages of Greece, adds perhaps authentic appeal as an actual authority from ancient ages. He advised against antipathetic associations by those living about those dead even as the largely fictitious audience in The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse affirm otherwise; Seven Sages (Latin: Septem sapientes) depicted in woodcut, sheet 60 verso, in 1493-printed illustrated encyclopedia, authored by German cartographer, historian and humanist Hartmann Schedel (Feb. 13, 1440-Nov. 28, 1514) in Latin as Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles) and in German, Schedelsche Weltchronik (Schedel's World History): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nuremberg_chronicles_f_60v_1.png

For further information:

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Brickell, Christopher; and Trevor Cole. (Editors-in-Chief). 2002. "Phacelia." Page 628. The American Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Plants & Flowers. New York NY: DK Publishing, Inc.

"Clematis crispa." Page 387. In: Hogan, Sean (Chief Consultant). 2003. Flora A Gardener's Encyclopedia. Volume I A-K. Portland Or: Timber Press, Inc.

Cranshaw, Whitney. 2004. "Clematis Chewing insects: margined blister beetle, twobanded Japanese weevil. Sucking insects: garden fleahopper, green peach aphid." Page 588. In: Appendix of Host Plant Genera and Associated Insects and Mites." Pages 577-627. Garden Insects of North America: The Ultimate Guide to Backyard Bugs. Princeton NJ; and Woodstock Oxfordshire UK: Princeton University Press.

Mosse, Kate. 2022. "The Mystery of the Acid Soil." Pages 299-333. In: Agatha Christie. Marple: Twelve Mysteries. New York NY: William Morrow Imprint, HarperCollins Publishers.

"Phacelia." Pages 1016-1018. In: Hogan, Sean (Chief Consultant). 2003. Flora A Gardener's Encyclopedia. Volume I A-K. Portland Or: Timber Press, Inc.

Sheng, Lu; Kongshu Ji; and Liangliang Yu. 24 September 2014. "Karyotype analysis on 11 species of the genus Clematis." Brazilian Journal of Botany 37(2). Springer. Received 11 March 2014. Accepted 1 September 2014. Published online 24 September 2014. Copyrighted 2014 Botanical Society of Sao Paulo. DOI 10.1007/s40415-014-0099-5
Available @ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ji-Kongshu/publication/280713109_Karyotype_analysis_on_11_species_of_the_genus_Clematis/links/5d9df87e299bf13f40d0c881/Karyotype-analysis-on-11-species-of-the-genus-Clematis.pdf

Sugiura, T. 1940. "Studies on the Chromosome Numbers in Higher Plants. IV." Cytologia 10: 324-333.
Available @ https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/cytologia1929/10/3/10_3_324/_pdf/-char/ja

Tenenbaum, Frances. (Ed.) "Clematis." Pages 98-100. In: Encyclopedia of Garden Plqnts. Taylor's Guides to Gardening. Boston MA; New York NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Tenenbaum, Frances. (Ed.) "Phacelia." Page 297. In: Encyclopedia of Garden Plqnts. Taylor's Guides to Gardening. Boston MA; New York NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.