“A man strangled a woman! In a train. I saw it.”

Mrs. McGillicuddy – 4.50 from Paddington

Elspeth McGillicuddy was not a woman usually given to hallucinations. But when she witnesses a woman being strangled on a train, no-one believes her. With no other witnesses and no corpse, she turns to the one person who can help, but how can Miss Marple solve a murder that appears not to have happened?

4.50 from Paddington (1957) is one of Christie’s most celebrated novels. It was here she introduced Miss Marple’s great-nephew, David, to assist her in the investigation. This was also the only time Christie would introduce a female ‘sidekick’ for Miss Marple; Lucy Eyelesbarrow, the young girl who infiltrates the Crackenthorpe family. Critics lauded the appearance of Lucy though this would be the only time she appeared in a Marple novel.