4.50 from Paddington
4.50 from Paddington is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in November 1957 in the United Kingdom by Collins Crime Club.[1] Reviewers at the time of publication generally liked the novel,[2][3] but would have liked more direct involvement of Miss Marple, and less consideration of her failing strength, using others to act for her.[4] A later review by Barnard found the story short on clues, but favourably noted Lucy Eyelesbarrow as an independent woman character.Mrs McGillicuddy describes to Miss Marple the dying woman as having blonde hair and wearing a fur coat and the man as tall and dark, though she saw only his back.Emma tells the police about two letters, one from her brother Edmund and written shortly before his death in France, and another received a few weeks before the woman's body is found.Mrs McGillicuddy enters the room at that moment, sees the doctor's hands at Miss Marple's throat, and cries out, "But that's him – that's the man on the train!"The London railway stations were perhaps not considered well known by the US publisher, and thus the title in the US was changed to What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw!, which also refers to the moment on the train when the murder was seen.Philip John Stead's review in The Times Literary Supplement (29 November 1957) concluded that "Miss Christie never harrows her readers, being content to intrigue and amuse them."[2] The novel was reviewed in The Times edition of 5 December 1957, stating, "Mrs Christie's latest is a model detective story; one keeps turning back to verify clues, and not one is irrelevant or unfair.""[3] Fellow crime writer Anthony Berkeley Cox, writing under the pen name of Francis Iles, reviewed the novel in the 6 December 1957 issue of The Guardian, in which he confessed to being disappointed with the work: "I have only pity for those poor souls who cannot enjoy the sprightly stories of Agatha Christie; but though sprightliness is not the least of this remarkable writer's qualities, there is another that we look for in her, and that is detection: genuine, steady, logical detection, taking us step by step nearer to the heart of the mystery.The police never seem to find out a single thing, and even Miss Marples (sic) lies low and says nuffin' to the point until the final dramatic exposure.[6] The novel was first serialised in the US in the Chicago Tribune in thirty six instalments from Sunday 27 October to Saturday 7 December 1957 under title Eyewitness to Death.The adaptation contains several changes from the novel: In addition to these changes, Miss Marple is seen reading Dashiel Hammett's Woman in the Dark and Other Stories, providing an inter-textual detail that suggests some of Miss Marple's detective insights come from her reading of classic murder fiction as well as her shrewd understanding of human nature.The novel was adapted as a set of 4 episodes of the Japanese animated television series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, airing in 2005.[citation needed] On 17 June 2010, I-play released a downloadable hidden object game based on 4.50 from Paddington (see the external links).