Rating: 
Summary: What Miss McGillicuddy Saw!
Review: ----is the original title of this Jane Marple offering, a much better choice than "4:50 From Paddington" which is a little bit deceptive and a lot more lackluster. Miss McGillicuddy, while riding the entitled train, saw a woman being strangled on a train running parallel to her own.Miss McG. reports this shocking occurrence to her hostess Miss Marple, the police and the train authorities. No body is found, and the authorities chalk up the report to an elderly lady's vivid imagination. But Miss Marple knows that one thing rock-solid Elspeth McGillicuddy lacks is a "vivid imagination." If Miss McG says she saw a murder, Miss Marple is certain a murder did, in fact, take place. Her curiosity aroused, Miss Marple enlists the aid of young Lucy Eyelesbarrow. Lucy is a delightful character who combines fearsome organizational abilities with all consuming charm and tact. In a fine bit of sleuthing, Miss Marple ascertains the only area where the body could have been dumped from the train is on the Crackenthorpe (don't you just love these names?) estate, Rutherford Hall. Lucy gets herself hired at Rutherford to find out about the people, and hopefully locate the body. The head Crackenthorpe is the old, miserly father who enjoys his poor health and depriving his grown children with equal enthusiasm. The family consists of his martyred spinster daughter, three sons, a son-in-law and a grandnephew schoolboy. Clever Lucy finds the body residing in a sarcophagus in a falling down barn on the property. The murderer would have to be very familiar with Rutherford Hall and its environs to have found such a resting place. None of the family has much of an alibi, but though they all have excellent motives for wanting to do away with their skinflint father, it appears none have any ties to the stranger hidden in their barn. The author displays a great deal of sly humor in the book, and her descriptions of the days and ways at Rutherford Hall are fascinating. I had a little difficulty believing this class conscious family would immediately accept Lucy as an equal and confidante, but I never let the small things bother me in a Christie book. The plot was delightfully intricate. For once, I thought I had pegged the murderer, but Dame Agatha triumphed yet again, and I was foiled. That the motive was a bit thin and barely acceptable is my only complaint. It is a fine Christie effort, not her best, but very much up to her standard of excellence.
Rating:
Summary: What Miss McGillicuddy Saw!
Review: ----is the original title of this Jane Marple offering, a much better choice than "4:50 From Paddington" which is a little bit deceptive and a lot more lackluster. Miss McGillicuddy, while riding the entitled train, saw a woman being strangled on a train running parallel to her own. Miss McG. reports this shocking occurrence to her hostess Miss Marple, the police and the train authorities. No body is found, and the authorities chalk up the report to an elderly lady's vivid imagination. But Miss Marple knows that one thing rock-solid Elspeth McGillicuddy lacks is a "vivid imagination." If Miss McG says she saw a murder, Miss Marple is certain a murder did, in fact, take place. Her curiosity aroused, Miss Marple enlists the aid of young Lucy Eyelesbarrow. Lucy is a delightful character who combines fearsome organizational abilities with all consuming charm and tact. In a fine bit of sleuthing, Miss Marple ascertains the only area where the body could have been dumped from the train is on the Crackenthorpe (don't you just love these names?) estate, Rutherford Hall. Lucy gets herself hired at Rutherford to find out about the people, and hopefully locate the body. The head Crackenthorpe is the old, miserly father who enjoys his poor health and depriving his grown children with equal enthusiasm. The family consists of his martyred spinster daughter, three sons, a son-in-law and a grandnephew schoolboy. Clever Lucy finds the body residing in a sarcophagus in a falling down barn on the property. The murderer would have to be very familiar with Rutherford Hall and its environs to have found such a resting place. None of the family has much of an alibi, but though they all have excellent motives for wanting to do away with their skinflint father, it appears none have any ties to the stranger hidden in their barn. The author displays a great deal of sly humor in the book, and her descriptions of the days and ways at Rutherford Hall are fascinating. I had a little difficulty believing this class conscious family would immediately accept Lucy as an equal and confidante, but I never let the small things bother me in a Christie book. The plot was delightfully intricate. For once, I thought I had pegged the murderer, but Dame Agatha triumphed yet again, and I was foiled. That the motive was a bit thin and barely acceptable is my only complaint. It is a fine Christie effort, not her best, but very much up to her standard of excellence.
Rating:
Summary: Back Loaded Plot
Review: 4.50 to Paddington takes a while to get started with much of the book centered around trying to decide if a murder actually took place. Once that it's decided that a murder did take place the plot picks up and the rest of the book reads more like a typical Agatha Christie.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, but definitelly not Chistie's best...
Review: After getting quite tired of Hercule Poirot's character and style, it was refreshing to read a Ms. Marple novel, especially since other characters, such as Lucy, help her out, so it's not a "standard" Agatha Christie book (most of Hercule Poirot's books, for instance, usually have Poirot arriving in the scene after the crime, Poirot observes and talk to people, often there are an extra crime or two happening before he solves it, then he gathers the survivors and in turns puts the blame on everyone until he finds the guilty party). but there are others, such as "And Then There Were None" who are much better than this one...
Rating:
Summary: A good book, but definitelly not Chistie's best...
Review: After getting quite tired of Hercule Poirot's character and style, it was refreshing to read a Ms. Marple novel, especially since other characters, such as Lucy, help her out, so it's not a "standard" Agatha Christie book (most of Hercule Poirot's books, for instance, usually have Poirot arriving in the scene after the crime, Poirot observes and talk to people, often there are an extra crime or two happening before he solves it, then he gathers the survivors and in turns puts the blame on everyone until he finds the guilty party). but there are others, such as "And Then There Were None" who are much better than this one...
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite the best from Agatha...
Review: Agatha wrote really good detectivestories, but thisone wasn't that good... The beginning was good, but in the mittel of the book the tempo gets slow as a turtel. The las 25 pages has the same amount of fackts and other things relevant to the red line as the rest of the book together. I read alot of christies, and this might have been the worst, to be honest!
Rating: 
Summary: From the first word to the last. . .
Review: Being my third Miss Marple (after the five- star Body in the Library and the slow- moving Carribean Mystery) I simply loved it. Mrs. McGillicuddy is a spitten image of Miss Marple and as usual, Miss Marple does none of the dirty work. (That task carried out by the world renound Lucy Eyeles- what ever.) That said, I will sum up my review with this phrase, Life is beautiful, but murder is not. . . * A wonderful companion to the A&E home video series.
Rating:
Summary: Don't miss this one!
Review: Elspeth McGillicuddy had spent a busy day Christmas shopping in London so when she settled into her comfortable 1st class train compartment on her way to visit her friend it was natural that she dozed off for a few minutes. It was most unsettling that she woke up just in time to see a murder being committed in a passing train. It was understandable that the train conducter did not believe this elderly lady's fantastic story. It was fortunate that Mrs. McGillicuddy's friend was none other than Jane Marple. Miss Marple believed her friend was not imagining whole thing. When the police found no evidence of the crime Miss Marple began to investigate for herself. She located the most likely place a body could be disposed of, a large estate owned by the Crackenthorpe family and arranged for a confederate, Lucy Eyelesbarrow to work for the family. The Crackenthorpe family is another of Christie's large dysfunctional families dominated by a disagreeable father (Luther), downtrodden daughter (Emma), ambitious son (Harold) and a pair of blacksheep - the artistic Cedric and the slightly crooked Alfred. Two other siblings have died, Edmund and Emma. Emma's husband, Bryan and son, Alexander are also part of the household. The body is found, more murders commited, the culprit unmasked and the true motive revealed in dramitic fashion by Miss Marple.
Along the way romance flourishes and leaves the reader with an unanswered question. The family is very much like characters from similiar families in other books, (HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS, A POCKET FULL OF RYE, CROOKED HOUSE and others). This, coupled with the various titles this story has had over the years - WHAT MRS. McGILLICUDDY SAW, EYEWITNESS TO MURDER and MURDER SHE SAID, could lead a reader to think they had read this one before. Do not pass this one by, it is worth reading for the delightful Lucy Eyelesbarrow alone!
Rating:
Summary: AwesoME...!!
Review: I am an Agatha Christie fan and i'm working on to read all 80something books written by her, and I'm almost halfway through it. Anyway, I thought this one was a very good one, compared to other a little weaker ones. First, it wasn't as boring in the beginning as some other works tend to do; actually, I thought it was pretty fast-paced, only things that are relevant and crucial were there, not those trivial stuff you sometimes find yourself reading in her other books.
Well, the crime pattern is pretty much the same as other books like Appointmetn w/ Death, After the funeral (funerals are fatal), etc. but it was rather a joy reading through it because the answer was so unexpected..
I would definitely recommend this along w/ books mentioned above.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good, Not Fantastic
Review: I enjoyed Lucy Eyelsbarrow's character very much, and was surprised that Miss Marple played a very backseat role to her. Other people have said this was solved through detection, which is true, but sometimes I felt that everything was too convenient. Fun for a quick read-- or a change of pace from the modern mysteries.
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