4.50 From Paddington is the Agatha Christie novel in which a friend of Miss Marple’s sees a murder on a passing train, and Miss Marple gets her friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow to go undercover at a local country house to look for the body. I listened to this as a 90-minute BBC radio adaptation.
Judging from the adaptation, at least, this is a mystery which can’t be actually solved ahead of time: one can determine who has opportunity, but not whodunnit. Miss Eyelesbarrow is a nice change of pace and her investigative efficiency is admirable, but the adaptation gives her romantic subplot such very short shrift that it would have been better left out. This is also probably a better book than radio play.
The adaptation did give me the opportunity for some legal geekery that is very spoilery, so I shall ROT13 it: V jnf nzhfrq gb jbex bhg gung, svefg, gur jvyy va dhrfgvba zhfg unir qvfgevohgrq gur rfgngr cre fgvecrf, fvapr gur qnhtugre’f puvyq jvyy funer naq fvapr erzbivat gur bgure fvoyvatf vapernfrf gur funerf gb bguref; naq frpbaq, gung gur bayl zneevrq fba zhfg abg unir nal puvyqera (vg’f abg fcrpvsvrq va gur nqncngvba gung V urneq), bgurejvfr xvyyvat uvz jbhyqa’g uryc (hayrff gur zheqrere jnf jvyyvat gb trg evq bs xvqf nf jryy).
I don’t know the radio play, but I like the book. The mystery isn’t terribly interesting, but Lucy Eylesbarrow and the family she moves in with are charming. The book reminds me a bit of Cold Comfort Farm, only more sweet and less satirical.
I’m starting to pick up Christie novels as I find them cheaply in used bookstores, so I will definitely be looking out for this one. I’d like to spend more time with Lucy Eyelesbarrow, very long name and all.
I remember liking this particular Miss Marple mystery; I think I read it under the American title of What Mrs McGillicudy Saw. Or something like that.
At the time, I remember I got to the end of the book and couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to understand regarding the end of Lucy’s romantic subplot. I don’t now if that was intentionally ambiguous, or just something that flew over my ten year old head.
I cheated and used Amazon’s “search inside the book” feature to see if the book gives an _answer_, at least, which no, it doesn’t. You can’t get any hints in the least from the adaptation because there’s no time for character development. Frankly I think it’s kind of a cheap trick, but at least it’s on a side issue.
Lucy’s choice of man is left open. I like that, actually; both the men could be a good pick. Personally, I think she goes for the one who has the son, because she hits it off so well with the son that they would obviously make a great family.
The non-father must come off a lot better in the book, then, because he was kind of a jerk in the radio play.