4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie

"The great mistress of the last-minute switch is at it again. . . . Even the experts have given up any attempts to out-guess Miss Christie." --The New Yorker In this beloved classic from the Queen of Mystery, now with a new beautiful series look, a woman witnesses a murder while peering through the window of one train into another train passing . . . and only Miss Marple believes her story 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. She watched on as 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. How could there be, with no corpse and no one 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 this mystery, and help unmask a murderer.

Ornery miser
tempting amount of money
have a bigger slice.

Interesting experience listening to a Miss Marple mystery, in audio only format. In some ways the bits that are frustrating are more so, when a character is designed to be insufferable, he is now insufferable with an English accent that makes him sound like a person with a blocked nose that needs to sneeze. When the old man is being callous or the elder brother is being smarmy, I feel like it takes an age to get past the moment of unpleasantness. On the other hand, at 1x speed, the pace of a Marple mystery allows me to do all kinds of things with my hands and not lose focus on the mystery. Any clues are spelled out, any surmises are often repeated. While I prefer the Marple mysteries that mean her involvement throughout the story, as in They Do It With Mirrors, Lucy Aislesburrow was an enjoyable alternative, acting in Marple's stead and getting involved in intrigues of her own. The multiple proposals were a bit of an eye roll, as was the general attitude toward domestic servants and women, but I'd be happy to see Lucy pitching in future entries in the series. By my count I've got five left, including the one I've so far had to skip because my library doesn't have A Pocket Full of Rye. Hopefully, interlibrary loan service will come back in the new year. Until then, on to the next!