Books

recently read 4:50 from Paddington

Aah!!! Just finished reading this one and still feeling awed by the murderer’s identification…totally mind-blowing !!!

A completely novel idea of a murder and the entire follow up sequence would make one wonder how Christie could even think of such plots!!! She must’ve done a lot of research about train movements and timetables. She really had to think like a killer to be able to do so …Hehe…!!

Anyway, coming to the story - the usual Christie elements are there - a big family, a patriarch, wills / inheritance, money squabbles, love stories, serial killings, earlier deaths still influencing today’s events etc.

Owing to Miss Marple’s old age in the story, she only acts passively and mostly advices two characters who are actually doing the leg work in solving the case. Though, she is the one identifying the place where the dead body would be found and putting someone to finding that.

The suspense throughout the story is quite thrilling - with a lot of red herrings and dead ends.

However, I’m still not able to digest if I had missed out on any clues about the killer, not his motives but… about his movements at the time of the murder. Don’t feel that it’s well explained but create a sense shock/awe. And, that’s why i’m not giving this a full 5* rating

Nevertheless, a nice thriller to read! Would rank among the middle of all the Christies’ I’ve read so far.