38-year-old Hollywood actress Jennifer Garner will play Agatha Christie's silver sleuth Miss Marple in a forthcoming Disney film, it has been announced.

The move will doubtless upset many Agatha Christie fans, more accustomed to the elderly charm of Margaret Rutherford and Joan Hickson's on screen portrayals.

Garner, whose has played crime fighters before, albeit in a figure hugging cat suit in the 2005 film Elektra, could bring a new audience to Christie's work and provide a boost to the British author's collectible legacy.

Memorabilia connected with the Torquay born novelist is always popular with collectors. A 2006 sale of 700 lots from Christie's Devon home raised £303,000, including a signed 1937 first edition of her Poirot adventure Death on the Nile.

Eye candy: Miss Marple

In 2010, a locked trunk belonging to Christie was bought for £100 by a fan of her work. Upon wrenching the box open, a hoard of jewellery thought to have belonged to the author's mother was revealed, worth an estimated £100,000.

A writing desk used by Christie to pen many of her novels sold for just £2,000 at auction in 2009, evidence that good investments can still be had where Agatha Christie is concerned.

An unpublished Poirot novel from 1939, featuring a Nazi dictator, was discovered in 2005. The original manuscript would attract considerable attention were it ever to come to auction.

In the meantime, we await the latest rendering of Miss Marple's adventures with interest.