“Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” was not originally a Miss Marple story ; it’s a standalone Agatha Christie novel later turned into a 2009 episode of the TV series Agatha Christie’s Marple , where the writers inserted Miss Marple into the plot.

Quick Scoop

  • The phrase “why didn’t they ask Evans” is the key clue in Christie’s original mystery, tied to who was (and wasn’t) consulted as a witness to a crucial event.
  • In the original book , Miss Marple does not appear at all; the sleuths are Bobby Jones and Lady Frankie Derwent.
  • The Marple TV episode (ITV, 2009) takes that standalone novel and heavily rewrites it so that Miss Marple is present and involved in solving the case.
  • This is different from the more recent 2022 three‑part adaptation , which keeps the focus on Bobby and Frankie and does not turn it into a Marple vehicle.

Why is it called a “Marple” episode if the book isn’t?

For SEO, streaming catalogs, and DVD box sets, anything in the Agatha Christie’s Marple ITV run is labeled as a “Marple” episode even when the source novel didn’t feature her.

The producers chose a mix of true Marple novels and “guest” stories they could reshape to fit the Miss Marple brand, and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? was one of the heavily reworked ones.

In other words: the title and core puzzle come from a non‑Marple Christie book, but the “Marple” tag belongs to the TV series that retrofitted Miss Marple into it.

TL;DR:
If you’re searching “why didn’t they ask evans marple,” you’re looking at the 2009 ITV Marple adaptation of Christie’s standalone novel , where Miss Marple was added for TV even though she isn’t in the original book.

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