Books: 4.50 From Paddington By Agatha Christie (1957)

 

“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 I was much younger –my first year of High School- I found reading Agatha Christie novels the best time waster. I liked her books, liked her prose, even if I generally found the whodunits a bit difficult to solve. She was, in many ways, able to keep readers interested even when she sometimes pulled a last minute switch on the reader who felt they had solved the crime. Over about a year, I read too many of her tales, eventually moving onto the genre of fantasy and sci-fi. But I’ve always wanted to return to the writer, but have generally never found the time. The modern Doctor Who episode The Unicorn and The Wasp made me want to read her again, but that episode aired twelve years ago, so I guess I was in hurry to read another book by Ms. Christie.

Still, 4.50 From Paddington (published in the US as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!) is the seventh novel to feature Miss Marple, but interestingly enough, she is sort of peripheral to story. Why this was done is odd. Jane Marple was often characterized as an elderly spinster, someone in her 70s, but seemly her energy varies from story to story. Here she seems somewhat frail, playing Nero Wolf, to Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a skilled cook and energetic housekeeper with a good reputation and excellent client list, who is very independent woman. I loved her and she ends up, actually, being the best thing about the book.

As always, Ms. Christie gives us another glimpse into the negative side of human nature. Part of her charm is how well she does this, how all the characters are caricatures, yet all have more dimension to them than you might expect. I liked the book, like the plotting, even the mystery was interesting, but I found myself still wishing Miss Marple was more central to the tale –even if Eyelesbarrow proved a fair proxy.