{"id":4874,"date":"2017-02-15T22:36:48","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T06:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/?p=4874"},"modified":"2018-02-22T11:04:44","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T19:04:44","slug":"450-from-paddington-by-agatha-christie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/450-from-paddington-by-agatha-christie","title":{"rendered":"4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cDon\u2019t go,\u201d said Cedric. \u201cMurder has made you practically one of the family.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4887 size-medium alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/paddington-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/paddington-200x300.jpg 200w, http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/paddington.jpg 431w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>I haven&#8217;t picked up an Agatha Christie book quite a while, but reading\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2kIeDHh\"><em>4:50 from Paddington<\/em><\/a>\u00a0was like easing into a comfortable pair of slippers. It\u00a0has all the elements I like in a mystery: a startling murder, multiple suspects with interesting back stories, a plot twist or two, and a creepy old English manor thrown in as a bonus. If you&#8217;ve enjoyed Agatha Christie before, you&#8217;ll like what \u00a0you find here. If you&#8217;ve never read anything by the Queen of Mystery, then\u00a0<em>4:50 from Paddington<\/em> is as good an introduction as any of her books.<\/p>\n<p>The American edition of the book was called\u00a0<em>What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw<\/em>, and boy did she get an eyeful. As she travels home on the 4:50 train a few days before Christmas, Mrs. McGillicuddy looks across to another train running parallel to hers and witnesses&#8211;or thinks she witnesses&#8211;a tall, dark man strangling a woman to death in one of the private cars. Mrs. McGillicuddy has trouble getting anyone to believe her until she tells her friend Miss Jane Marple. It&#8217;s amateur detective Miss Marple who really sets things in motion, and soon all sorts of things begin to turn up: an ancient sarcophagus, a mystery spouse, and even some good old arsenic, that staple of cozy mysteries.<\/p>\n<p>Christie&#8217;s eighth Miss Marple novel is also filled with interesting side characters, from the crotchety Luther Crackenthorpe to the resourceful Miss Lucy Eyelsbarrow.\u00a0<em>4:50 from Paddington<\/em> is a model cozy mystery, and if the ending wasn&#8217;t as clever as I had hoped, it was still vintage Agatha Christie.<\/p>\n<p>I read this book for several of my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/2017-reading-challenges\">reading challenges for 2017<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/2017-reading-challenges#british\">British Books Challenge<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/2017-reading-challenges#follow\">Follow the Clues Mystery Challenge<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/2017-reading-challenges#whats\">What&#8217;s In a Name Reading Challenge<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2kIeDHh\"><em>4:50 from Paddington<\/em><\/a> by Agatha Christie<br \/>\n<em>First edition<\/em> London: Collins Crime Club, 1957<br \/>\n<em>Kindle edition<\/em> New York: William Morrow, 2004<br \/>\nPrint length: 224 pages<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cDon\u2019t go,\u201d said Cedric. \u201cMurder has made you practically one of the family.\u201d I haven&#8217;t picked up an Agatha Christie book quite a while, but reading\u00a04:50 from Paddington\u00a0was like easing into a comfortable pair of slippers. It\u00a0has all the elements I like in a mystery: a startling murder, multiple suspects with interesting back stories, a plot twist or two, and a creepy old English manor thrown in as a bonus. If you&#8217;ve enjoyed Agatha Christie before, you&#8217;ll like what \u00a0you find here. If you&#8217;ve never read anything by&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1057,5],"tags":[918,36,842,980,186],"class_list":["post-4874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-books","tag-agatha-christie","tag-book-recommendations","tag-book-reviews","tag-miss-marple","tag-mysteries"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/paddingtonbanner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOucj-1gC","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4874"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4905,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4874\/revisions\/4905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}