4.50 from Paddington (Miss Marple)
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‘Never a dull moment.’
The Times
Product Description
For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around a woman’s throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away.
But who, apart from Miss Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there were no suspects, no other witnesses… and no corpse.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Old and new readers of Agatha Christie's whodunnits will not be disappointed with the 1957 puzzler. It has an unforgettable opening sequence, an ingenious denouement, and an interesting sleuth, especially created for the occasion, named Lucy Eylesbarrow. Although it is the elderly Jane Marple who exerts her powers of detection, she does it by remote control while her much younger friend does the spadework - or the domestic work. As Agatha Christie explains, "The point about Lucy Eylesbarrow was that all worry, anxiety, and hard work went out of a house when she came into it." Accordingly, the tertiary-trained domestic, Lucy, is soon installed in Rutherford Hall, where Jane Marple believes a body thrown from a train might be hidden.
Surprises, further murders, gossip, marriage proposals, and poisonings follow in rapid succession, so that before you know it, the hours have sped by, the murderer is revealed, and you admit that once again you were quite unable to guess whodunnit.
Agatha Christie adds to the usual cozy elements of her murder mysteries a heavy involvement with passenger trains, timetables and railway matters so beloved of the British. Otherwise you'll find the book fits into the pattern of the dysfunctional family's struggles being worked out with a particularly stubborn, callous and crusty old man as the family's head.
Feature film and TV adaptations of this novel have been made, the most faithful to the text featuring Joan Hickson who also can be heard in an unabridged reading on audiotapes.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I have read all of Christie's books and I must say I enjoyed this one the most. It was solved through actual detective work and not just some detective who percieved the solution through out. Miss Marple is my favorite of Christie's detectives and Lucy Eyelesbarrow is a very admirable young lady.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is my favourite Agatha Christie. A great beginning with an old lady seeing a woman being strangled in a passing train. No one believes her except, of course, her friend Jane Marple. Like Poirot, Marple can be exceptionally irritating, but in this one she keeps her little old ladyisms to a minimum, and even her habit of using St Mary Mead villagers as her template of humanity works quite well. It helps that Marple has a good sidekick - the competent, no-nonsense Lucy Eylesbarrow - who is infiltrated into the household where the suspected murderers are thought to be, and receives marriage proposals from all of them.
Christie at her best. Cliches kept to a minimum. Characters quite well rounded; the regulation lovers more Beatrice and Benedict sparring partners than sweet cooing doves. Christie provides all the safety of a world where you know order has only briefly been disturbed and will be restored by the end of the book, while at the same time leading the reader through a maze of promising paths and dead ends. This is the classic, beautifully constructed English detective novel, littered with clues, suspicion falling on everyone: the denouement literally made me gasp.
Christie at her best. Cliches kept to a minimum. Characters quite well rounded; the regulation lovers more Beatrice and Benedict sparring partners than sweet cooing doves. Christie provides all the safety of a world where you know order has only briefly been disturbed and will be restored by the end of the book, while at the same time leading the reader through a maze of promising paths and dead ends. This is the classic, beautifully constructed English detective novel, littered with clues, suspicion falling on everyone: the denouement literally made me gasp.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Traditional detective writing at its finest
There may not be a lot of corpses around (though there are some), but this has all the ingredients of traditional detective writing. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Dr. Mark A. Corner
My favorite Agatha Christie book so far
This book keeps the thrill and the excitement from the first page to the last. It's my first Agatha Christie book and i'm so glad i start to read her with this, because i can't... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Kaan Sensoy
Best Miss Marple Novel
I am a huge fan of Poirot and Miss Marple and I have to say that 4.50 from Paddington is Agatha Christie's best Miss Marples. It reminds me of baking. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mrs. A. L. Maddocks
the perfect voice!
joan hickson is the perfect voice for this - she really gets the tone right all the way through. the story itself is a good one as well. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Chris Miller
HELP!!?
Is this story meant to end with Inspector Craddock leaving on the train to Paris....? No further explanation? Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2010 by weirst
Marple gets a trusty sidekick
Back on form a little for Christie - the police aren't around to make bumbling fools of themselves until fairly late on in the game - Miss Marple has a valid, non-coincidental... Read more
Published on 25 Jun 2009 by J. R. Johnson-Rollings
Oh to share a train with Miss Marple
I am not the biggest fan of Poirot however I absolutely love a good Miss Marple, so I went to the TBR pile and the 4.50 From Paddington beamed out at me - how could I resist? Read more
Published on 23 Jan 2009 by Simon Savidge Reads
A true joy to hear
This book was what got me hooked on miss marple and to hear Joan Hickson bring it to life is fantastic. Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2009 by J. S. Robinson
vintage christie
THIS IS A MISS MARPLE NOVEL ALTHOUGH MOST OF THE DETECTING RELIES ON A RESOURCEFUL YOUNG LADY NAMED LUCY EYELESBARROW. Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2008 by SARA
At the moment when the two trains gave the illusion of being...
It remainds you of "The lady vanishes", "Strangers on a train" ? Passenger Elspeth McGillicuddy sees on a running parallel train a tall, dark man strangling a woman, but next day... Read more
Published on 16 Nov 2007 by Sandra
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