Four-Fifty from Paddington

From AudioFile Oh, the contentment of settling down with an Agatha Christie--the happy anticipation of mystery and deceit. This 1957 Miss Marple offers the satisfaction of her solution to the murder witnessed by her friend Elspeth McGillicuddy as one train runs momentarily beside another. Before her recent death, Joan Hickson personified Miss Marple in 12 of the Christie books adapted for television by the BBC. The series seen in the States on PBS and A&E-TV is generally regarded as the most faithful adaptation of Christie's Miss Marple books. On the television and in this audiobook, recorded in 1994, Hickson simply IS the mild, elderly, deceptively parochial lady with piercing insight into human wrongdoing. She also manages to inhabit the other characters in this book beautifully, not so much by creating voices, as by variations in diction and speech rhythm. Her voice is old, yet strong, and her pacing is superb. Rarely have Christie's quiet humor and wry characterizations been so clearly voiced. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine 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 the woman's throat. The body crumpled. The the other train sped off. About the Author By Agatha Christie Review 'A model detective story, there is never a dull moment.' The Times 'The suspense is agonising.' Daily Mail 'Miraculously fresh from a vintage pen.' Sunday Dispatch 'Without the female of the species, indeed, detective fiction would be in a bad way. Miss Christie never harrows her readers, being content to intrigue and amuse them.' Times Literary Supplement 'The great mistress of the last-minute switch is at it again! even the experts have given up any attempts to out-guess Miss Christie.' New Yorker 'Precisely what one expects: the most delicious bamboozling possible in a babble of bright talk and a comprehensive bristle of suspicion all adeptly managed to keep you much too alert elsewhere to see the neat succession of clues that catch a murderer we never so much as thought of.' New York Herald Tribune From the Back Cover 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.