4.50 from Paddington

One of Agatha Christie's better-known novels is subjected to the full BBC treatment, resulting in the usual excellence. The voices of the cast are carefully chosen, particularly that of June Whitfield, who plays Miss Jane Marple, soft-spoken sleuth-extraordinaire. Background sounds are skillfully interwoven with the dialogue. The plot is that two trains pull up next to one another for a few moments, and Miss McGillicuddy, a friend of Miss Marple who is on one train, sees an unknown man in the process of strangling a woman on the other train. At first, no one can find the body--until Miss Marple takes an indirect hand. No one fools Miss Marple for long. D.A.W. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

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. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine