The 4.50 From Paddington (Miss Marple) by Agatha Christie

 

The 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie.

This special edition published 1st November 2018 by Harper Collins.

From the cover of the book:

‘Oh, Jane! I’ve just seen a murder!’

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.

***********

When Elspeth McGillycuddy gets on the train to make her way to her old friend Miss Marple in the run-up to Christmas, the last thing she expects to see is a woman being murdered on the train travelling next to her, just outside Brackhampton. The authorities put down Mrs McGillycuddy's claims to the ramblings of an old woman, especially since there is no sign of a body, but Miss Marple knows her friend well, and believes that what she saw is most certainly true.

Miss Marple is on the case, and after some observational journeys up and down the railway track in the vicinity of Brackhampton, she comes to the conclusion that the only place a body could have been disposed of between stations is on the land belonging to Rutherford Hall, the home of the Crackenthorpe family.

Being too frail to undertake the search for herself, Miss Marple engages the services of  the sensible and intelligent Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a young professional cook and housekeeper of her acquaintance, who obtains employment as Rutherford Hall to investigate in her stead. Lucy finds herself looking after the crotchety, and penny-pinching old Luther Crackenthorpe and his longsuffering spinster daughter Emma, using every spare moment to look for clues around the estate in the guise of practising her golf swing - and it is not long before she is on the trail of something suspicious. Miss Marple's hunch is confirmed, when Lucy turns up the remains of the poor dead woman in a shabby Greco-Roman sarcophagus in a barn containing Luther's odd collection of antiques, after helping Luther's grandson Alexander Eastley and his friend James Stoddart-West to to find something to amuse themselves with during the holidays.

So begins the police investigation into the fate of the dead woman, which introduces us to the rest of the Crackenthorpe family, none of whom are too fond of old Luther - Luther's sons bohemian artist Cedric, respectable businessman Harold, and the dodgy-dealer Alfred; and Bryan Eastley, who is the widower of Luther's deceased daughter Edith, and Alexander's father. Also part of the family circle is Dr Quimper, Luther's physician. At the head of the case, Christie drops in a familiar face in Detective-Inspector Dermot Craddock, who is the godson of Sir Henry Clithering, and very familiar with Miss Marple's powers of deduction and knowledge of human nature from the case in A Murder is Announced.

I have not previously read this Christie before, having only seen the excellent adaptation with Joan Hickson , the quintessential Jane Marple, so I was delighted to find that the book is much more twisty than the tv version - and has more murders! The identity of the dead woman takes much of the story to establish, and just about every single person comes under the spotlight as the potential murderer, until some of the Crackenthorpes begin to drop like flies in a way that hints that one of them is trying to bump them off to claim a bigger slice of the inheritance pie. The misdirection is delicious, with storylines bringing in both England and France, and the glorious Mrs McGillycuddy's role in finally identifying he murderer, through one of Miss Marple's finest bit of play acting ever, is highly entertaining.

There is a lot of humour in this story, despite the murders and a whole lot of menace, particularly around Lucy's interactions with the Crackenthorpe family, and Miss Marple's relationship with Dermot (who I have a bit of a crush on). There is a very enjoyable romantic thread to the tale too, with the supreme Lucy at the centre. I loved it. 

This book is my November choice for the #ReadChristie2022 challenge, and as usual, I flipped between the print copy (a very lovely hardcover special edition), and the audiobook narrated by Emilia Fox, who does a grand job as expected (even if her French accent sounds a little Spanish to me).

The 4.50 from Paddington is available to buy now in multiple formats.

About the author:

Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie began writing during the First World War and wrote over 100 novels, plays and short story collections. She was still writing to great acclaim until her death, and her books have now sold over a billion copies in English and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. Yet Agatha Christie was always a very private person, and though Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple became household names, the Queen of Crime was a complete enigma to all but her closest friends.