It’s been a long time since I read this one. My memories were of it being rather gloomy and foreboding, but this time I happily found it to be much lighter and funnier than I remembered. Even Miss Marple is warmer in this one. In fact, thinking back on the adaptations, it’s standard practice to pick Joan Hickson as the most accurate, but in this book I really think she’s closer to Geraldine McEwan’s more impish Miss Marple. She’s literally described as twinkling, at some points! Make no mistake, the steel is still there, but there’s a lot of charming moments in this of Miss Marple enjoying causing a scene, or indulgently speculating on a budding romance. Then again, perhaps deliberately causing a stir in polite conversation is not too much of a stretch for “the worst cat in the village”, as she’s described in Murder at the Vicarage. So despite the fact that she’s physically distant from the crime, there are a lot of good Miss Marple scenes in this one, and her pinpointing the location of the body would make Freeman Wills Crofts’ Inspector French beam with pride.

However, Miss Marple is definitely not the main character of 4.50 From Paddington. That honour goes to the ultra-competent Lucy Eyelesbarrow. Upon earning a First in Mathematics at Oxford University, Lucy did the calculations and immediately ditched the academic life for the better paid one of domestic help. She hires herself out to households in need of help, for a maximum of two weeks, where she’ll do every household task required to make things run perfectly. And on Miss Marple’s request, she adds “discovering a body” to her list of skills. It’s fun to watch Lucy deftly charm everyone and effortlessly divert them from her true purpose in being there.
You could accuse her of being a Mary Sue, a character who’s too perfect to be real, or you might wonder if domestic service work, no matter how well-planned, can possibly be as delightful as it seems to be for her. But because in the end she’s always directed by and reporting to Miss Marple, it works. Exploring Rutherford Hall via Lucy is very interesting, bringing the setting more into focus than Christie usually does. I do think Lucy’s romantic choices take up too much space in the plot, though the scenes are enjoyable to read, especially when she’s looking after the two boys who are “putting the case” to her for Bryan Eastley.

Conversely, the mystery plot takes up too little of the book, or what space it does take up is not used effectively. For much of the book the body is not quite identified, and isn’t openly attached to the Crackenthorpe estate. The wide-ranging enquiries needed to identify the body are not really a job for our amateur detectives. The police must identify the body, and that means the clues – or rather options, since this book isn’t really clued – are delivered to us unconnected from Lucy’s investigation. This disconnection makes it more difficult to care about either side of the investigation as a puzzle. Which is fortunate I guess, because it isn’t really a puzzle mystery. The final twist that kicks off the unveiling of the killer is an unbelievable coincidence, and lacks impact because the facts till this point are so foggy – if the rug-pulling is going to work, I have to be convinced to stand on the rug in the first place.
The latter parts of the book are stuffed with dramatic incident, but the events seem to just happen – not prompted by anything the investigators do, or any sort of deadline; only to spice things up.
Miss Marple’s inevitable trap to catch the killer is almost parodic in its ridiculousness. Though given that the nasty patriarch figure has just delivered this gem:

“Birthday?” snorted the old man. “What’s he doing with a birthday? Birthdays are only for children. I never count my birthdays and I won’t let anyone else celebrate them either.”

…I’m not so sure it isn’t actually intended as parody (I suppose it is Panto season… Booo! Hiss! etc). The sudden escalation of humour left me amused, but also confused. It’s worth noting, though, that this is pretty much in line with the character’s behavior throughout the book. Most of the family are flat characters – Christie gives them a bit of backstory, but they all act “to type”; she can definitely do better than this, and in fact does, with Miss Marple’s friend Elspeth McGillicuddy. As for the killer, it’s a decent misdirection, but not a particularly exciting one. And no clues to kick yourself over having missed them.

All this said, it sounds like I must think the book is bad, and I really don’t. It’s very fun and has some great writing. Christie’s often-overlooked skill with gentle humour is fully evident here, and if you’re into detective fiction in order to see clever people do clever things, you’ll get some of that here. But it does tend away from some of the more distinctive pleasures of Christie: tricky plots, fantastic clueing, and an impeccably assembled jigsaw puzzle.

Other opinions:

Ah Sweet Mystery!
Clothes in Books
Countdown John’s Christie Journal
The Grandest Game in the World
In Search of the Classic Mystery