(UPDATE: For more details, including added commentary and my response to a small but vocal minority of fans taking issue on Reddit with Foley being chosen to write the next Marple book, check out TRBS Substack. Read the free, basic version of this article below.)
Fans of Agatha Christie’s Golden Age whodunits are in for a treat, because #1 New York Times bestselling author Lucy Foley has been brought on to write a brand new Miss Marple adventure, 50 years after the publication of Christie’s final mystery starring the world’s most famous female detective.
Jane Marple, who Christie introduced to the world in her 1930 novel The Murder at the Vicarage, went on to star in a dozen books and numerous short stories. Famously, much like her final Hercule Poirot novel, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case, Christie actually wrote what would later become her final Miss Marple novel back in the 1940s, before saving the manuscript for publication at a later date. Sleeping Murder, set some thirty years before its eventual release, therefore, was published in 1976 and has become a cherished story among Christie enthusiasts.
Now, readers can get ready for another delicious whodunit starring their favorite unassuming female sleuth.
Foley, a brilliant talent and mega fan of Christie’s mysteries, is now charged with continuing the Queen of Crime’s legacy, similarly to what fellow author Sophie Hannah is doing with her “New Hercule Poirot” mystery series that she’s been writing on behalf of Agatha’s estate since 2014, when The Monogram Murders first hit bookstores. Best known for hit titles such as The Guest List and The Hunting Party, the latter of which was crowned one of the “Best of BookTok” titles in 2019, Foley is no stranger to high expectations. Pretty much from the moment she burst onto the literary scene back in 2015 with her debut historical fiction novel, The Book of Lost and Found, Foley has been in demand. It wasn’t until she wrote her first crime thriller, The Hunting Party, though, that her career soared to new heights and readers and critics alike started mentioning her in the same breath as Agatha Christie.
And now, their names will be linked forever.
Details for Foley’s first Marple book are very much still under wraps (we don’t even have a title yet), but we do know that publication is set for September 8, 2026.
Announcement below.
The New Miss Marple from Lucy Foley
Release Date: September 8, 2026
William Morrow
A brand-new Miss Marple novel from Lucy Foley, the No.1 bestselling author of The Guest List and The Midnight Feast.
50 years since Agatha Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published, Christie devotee and thriller author, Lucy Foley, reimagines the most famous fictional female detective of all time in a brand new mystery…
Lucy Foley studied English literature at Durham University and University College London and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry. She is the author of six novels, including The Paris Apartment and The Guest List. She lives in London.
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.
We’ll be covering this book right up to its highly-anticipated publication, and we expect more details soon, so make sure to check back in the coming weeks for additional details, including a title and cover reveal, plot details, etc.
Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor in addition to running TRBS. He is the author of FIELDS OF FIRE, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr says “will leave you speechless and begging for more,” LETHAL RANGE, OUT FOR BLOOD, GONE DARK, and TED BELL’S MONARCH. For more information, follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and BookBub. For even more content and book news, subscribe to The Real Book Spy Substack!