4.50 from Paddington / A Pocket Full of Rye: Two BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation by Agatha Christie and Michael Bakewell

E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on 4.50 from Paddington;2) "The Marples": the complete guide to all the cases of crime literature's foremost female detective.For an instant the two trains ran side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth McGillicuddy stared helplessly out of her carriage window as a man tightened his grip around a woman’s throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away. But who, apart from Mrs McGillicuddy’s friend Jane Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there are no other witnesses, no suspects, and no case—for there is no corpse, and no one is missing. Miss Marple asks her highly efficient and intelligent young friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow to infiltrate the Crackenthorpe family, who seem to be at the heart of the mystery, and help unmask a murderer.

3.5/5. This was a re-read for me but I first read it so long ago that I've completely forgotten everything about it.

The pacing for this one was a little off - it felt mostly slow through the whole novel, but then really ramped up very quickly at the end. There were some plot twists at the end that I really didn't see coming so I bumped it up to 3.5, though originally I would've given it 3.

Miss Marple is supposed to be the detective for this one but she really hardly has much to do with the whole mystery, with a lot of the groundwork being done by Lucy Eyelesbarrow and Inspector Craddock. Miss Marple does turn up during the denouement and magically whips out the answer out of nowhere, though. Nevertheless, I did enjoy Lucy's character so I wasn't too pressed about that.

Overall it was a pretty enjoyable, dare I say even comforting, mystery to pass the time and was great for that purpose, though definitely not in the same league as Christie's more famous works.