![4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie: Book review]()
Thriller |
One cannot go wrong with an Agatha Christie, can they? 4:50 from Paddington is another good one for me on the long road
Of all the projects that I have started and left midway, reading the entire Agatha Christie collection was the one that I almost came close to completing.
Maybe I was near completing it only because I had started it during my school days and our library suddenly had replenished their book stock with lots of Christie’s. I have decided to re-read as many books of hers as possible this year and try and revive the reviewing habit. Of course, I would be continuing to read and review other books as well. So let us take our plunge, right away.
About 4:50 from Paddington
Book Name: 4:50 from Paddington
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Fiction Thriller
Characters: Miss Jane Marple, Lucy Eyelesbarrow, Mrs Elspeth McGillicuddy, Luther Crackenthorpe, Emma, Alfred, Cedric and Harold Crackenthorpe
Plot Summary of 4:50 from Paddington
What would you do if you witness a murder that no one seems to believe about? Give up? Mrs Elspeth McGillicuddy doesn’t. On her return journey after her Christmas purchase by train the 4:50 from Paddington, she witnesses a man strangling a woman on the train that passes hers.
She reaches to the concerned authorities but realizes that no one is taking her word seriously. Lucky for her, she stays with her friend Miss Jane Marple, an old busybody who not just knows the right people to talk to, but also believes earnestly in her friend that she decides to solve the case on her own.
Miss Marple is ‘just the finest detective God ever made ‐ natural genius cultivated in a suitable soil’. She is handicapped by fragility due to her age, but she helps to solve cases for the Scotland Yard. So she doesn’t waste much of her time when she understands that her friend Mrs McGillicuddy was speaking the truth. But unfortunately for them, no body of a blonde woman turns up in the following days. When Mrs McGillicuddy leaves after her stay, Miss Marple takes it upon herself as a duty to find the body and the murderer.
Using the never-ending list of people who would love to help an old lady, she studies the route of the trains that pass through that particular station at the given time, and quickly zeroes in Rutherford Hall as the place where they could find the body. She sends in an efficient and thorough house help Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow to Rutherford to discover the body. Unfortunately for them, they find out not just a body but a series of murder that may or not be connected to the first one related to the 4:50 from Paddington.
Book review of 4:50 from Paddington
Things are never as they seem, particularly when there is a broken family with a large sum of money to be inherited when the father kicks off and every one of them has a lot to lose if that didn’t happen anytime sooner, concerned. The Crackenthorpe family consists of the old man Luther Crackenthorpe, his daughter Emma who stays in to take care of her apparently invalid father and their three sons Alfred, Cedric and Harold. Though the latter do not live at Rutherford, they do visit their father often.
Harold, a businessman and a prominent figure in the city, Alfred, the black sheep of the family and the one who is into shady deals and Cedric, the rebellious painter who lives in Ibiza, look like the man Mrs McGillicuddy saw from her train. Their widower son in law Bryan Eastley and his son Alexander would also benefit from the family inheritance. There are too many suspects and motives and far too fewer clues to continue, or so the police think but not long before Miss Marple solves the crimes, thanks to Mrs McGillicuddy’s return to the story once again.
The ending is entirely unexpected, as with most of the Agatha Christie’s. Miss Marple appears too little in the story, to my liking. In fact, she arrives only to stitch the bits and pieces of everyone’s part into a meaningful whodunnit. Lucy plays her stand-in for the most part of the story and does more than what is expected of her. There are funny parts that worked only for her like the one where all the Crackenthorpes men were trying to make some proposition to her.
Young ones have fun there, you know amidst murders and all. In fact the elders considered it even healthy for the kids to go look for clues about the murderer, and it goes as far as one of the elders is ready to prepare a fake clue just to keep them occupied. Maybe it was just the period they lived in, but the presence of these kids did liven up the book by a bit.
Bottom-line
Though 4:50 from Paddington is definitely not my favorite Agatha Christie, it was a pleasure re-reading just for the childhood memories. The story ran too long and too slow in parts. The ending was unexpected, but it failed to make the reader wonder how he had missed the glaring clue at the end after it was solved.
I love whodunnits that make me feel that surprised that ‘oh the murderer was just among them, all along. How did I miss that?’ Well, 4:50 from Paddington did not do that. Oops, I have said enough, no more spoilers.
Let’s talk
Have you read 4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie? What do you think about Christie’s books? Who is your favorite fictional detectives and why? Let us chat.
review, Thriller |
If you had been following my blog for a while now, you would know how excited I become when I get my hands on a serial killer, erm I mean a book on serial killers. The blurb of the book was so intriguing promising me tale with ‘a serial killer, an execution and an after life with a dosage on morality’, how could I pass it up?
If death is all you can sentence a killer of 28 women to, especially when he feels no remorse towards his deeds, would you be satisfied if one of the victims was your family? What could be a worse punishment than death itself?
If every child with a bad home doesn’t turn into a killer, what makes the notorious few to turn into one? Rather, how much does a broken family and abused childhood affect a killer’s mindBook Name: Hellbound: The Tally Man
Author: David McCaffrey
Characters: Obadiah Stark, Joe O Connell, Eva, Eve
The story begins with The Tally Man, Stark being executed by lethal injection at the high security prison at ADX Absolom in front of his victim’s families and the media. He feels no regrets, even till the last moment of his life, rather looks forward to whatever that may lay ahead for him. Joe O Connell, a reporter and follower of Obdiah Stark’s life, investigates the execution when he hears that there might be a foul play.
Stark ‘awakes’ after his execution and is shocked to find he lives at his hometown with a loving wife and affectionate daughter. Being true to his evil self, he goes around the town on murder spree only to be shot down by the cops. Much to his and the reader’s surprise, he wakes up the next day only to realize that the previous day wasn’t real after all. While his family seem to have reasoned his mood swings and confusions to the effects of his medications, he continues to feed his ego by rampaging around killing people only to find that the days to be restored.
There are three Point of Views (PoV) in the story; the afterlife of Stark with his family, Joe’s investigation about the irregularities related to Stark’s death in real time and the fact sheet based on the Dr. John Franklin’s psychological profiling of Stark right from his childhood. Though there were places I felt the shift among the PoVs little abrupt and disturbing the flow of the narration, they bring together the past, the present and the future of Stark side by side.
I am not sure what to feel about Stark. Should I say he was intriguing but that would be saying too little. I don’t relate to him per se, but how can I not feel awed at someone who knocks off people in such a gory fashion then walks into a bar and asks a mug of beer. Wow, now that is style. He preys on other’s lives not because he hates them nor for other petty reasons like vengeance, money or lust, he kills because he can.
He loves to feel the power over the victim, it gives him a high. And even after the job done he doesn’t feel a remorse, rather just moves on with his life. To say he was the evil personified would be closer to truth, and that is why I like him. In short, the best serial killer I have read. Did I mention he had a tattoo of his tally of 28 murders? Sigh, what is wrong with me. I would love to read more about him. Oh wait there is more to the series? I am picking them up for sure.
I should start with I am in love with the author’s writing style, dictum and everything that I could think of. I have been raving about the book and its author to everyone who would listen to, from the day I started reading the novel. I can not believe that Hellbound
is the debut of the author David McCaffrey, I am sure to follow his other works.
I clearly was hooked from the right beginning and the plot twists kept my pulse rising right till the last page. And the final twist made me go ‘Woah, did I read that right?’ Well played, David! For someone who reads too much about killers for her own good, Hellbound: The Tally Man 
has been the best read in 2016 (yet).
![4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie: Book review]()
Drama, review |
I have wondered time and again of a world without a government, or without the rules as we know. Most dystopian novels help us have a glimpse of such a world but a very few makes us wish they were true. Go ahead read if Fluence made the cut.
Book Name: Fluence
Author: Stephen Oram
Genre: Fiction – Dystopian
Characters: Amber, Martin, Sam, Ms. Joyce
Setting: London, England, The UK
Disclaimer: I received this book from the author free of cost in return for an honest review.
I am so excited about the world the book is set in. A world ruled by corporate, a world that sustains on a assessment of performance – sort of- a class system based on the scores they have cut during the year. But he twist is the scores are based on their popularity or the Fluence points and magine people having to try and get more social credos by updating their social lives to run their normal life. I could not stop comparing the Facebook like that few people are desperate about even in our own world.
The protagonists work for the Bureaucracy – the one that grades people into color codes as a part of disability management department. The department segregates people who have to be supported by the government from the other. Amber is trying to do her duty which is to reduce the number of people of with disability registered, so that she can gain her points for her performance.
She is ambitious to move on higher status and focused on that, come what may. Martin on the other hand has lost his vigor to try and win and just wants to stay put on his green status, but to his dismay his score keeps dipping without apparent reason, and he is determined to find out why.
The book is well twined with loopholes and the story is set in a steady pace that it would be quite hard to put it down until you finish it. Being one of the outliers, I would have liked to see more of them and how the system would fall apart. Reading about people pitted against each other and the subject of a shallow morality have always worked for me, and Oram’s Fluence is no different.
I liked the author’s descriptive tone of narration at most places, it helped to understand the different world we are at – but oh enough of those building and bakeries already. Though I didn’t feel connected with any of the central characters, I do understand their actions which speaks much of the author’s writing tone. I would look forward to reading more of his books in future for sure.
Do let me know what you think of the book Fluence or my review in the comments.
This Review is a part of the Blogger Outreach Program by b00k r3vi3w Tours
![4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie: Book review]()
review, Thriller |
How far would you let a stranger into your life? How far, if he was a convicted murderer? How far, if he would proclaim it in public?
About the book
Book Name: The Killing of Mummy’s Boy
Author: Joan Ellis
Genre: Fiction – Thriller
Characters: Sandra, Carl, Ben, Lee Elliot, Debs
Setting: Isle of Wight, London, The UK
Disclaimer: I received this book from the Booklover Catlady Publicity Reviews free of cost in return for an honest review.
The plot
Sandra has had always a careful life, watching her back and her son’s. Her son, Carl is under the Witness Protection Programme for helping convicting the local thug Lee Elliot on a murder. Carl is a reckless youngster, who doesn’t seem to understand the grave danger that hung over his neck and blames his mother for making him choose the Programme. She loves him terribly and only the concern over his safety that stops her from rushing to her son’s side.
Sandra inadvertently spells out her address to a stranger, who insists on calling her Rosie and proclaims to have been just released out from jail on her journey back home. She learns Ben was in for slitting someone’s throat, and she is filled with paranoia that she is being watched by Ben and her house being visited, her rest rooms used and her food tasted.
She realizes the cop were not taking her complaints seriously and won’t be around to help her unless there were any crimes committed. She is also a wine aficionado, which helps her get through her days and nights while she dread the unannounced visits.
Things get worse when Carl get back home with his pregnant girlfriend in tow. Read The Killing of Mummy’s Boy to find out more if Sandra gets through alive.
My initial thoughts
I have read and enjoyed Joan’s other novel, ‘I am Ella. Buy Me‘, yet I was surprised by the premise of ‘The Killing of Mummy’s Boy’. We don’t think twice much before spelling our addresses out in public these days, and the possibility that this could happen to anyone of us, made it all the more intriguing.
I loved all the twists in the plot (maybe except the final one) and was genuinely pleased that the character I liked didn’t turn out to be the stalker. I had to stop myself tapping my head every time Sandra made a stupid decision, thanks to her being an alcoholic. I disliked Carl and his using his mom as a shield from his own responsibilities even before the plot fell open.
Things that worked for me
- I found the dysfunctional mother-son relationship credible and intriguing, kudos to the Joan’s attention to detail and writing style.
- I loved the writing of Joan Ellis especially as she did a commendable job on bringing out the pain and fear of Sandra and the vivid backdrop of the 80’s.
Things that didn’t work for me
- It was a bit difficult to get into initially but the pace increased as it got past 30% of the book.
- Some may feel that there were too many things happening at the same time, which may be overwhelming.
Bottom-line
Joan explores the subject of moral righteousness and integrity against family values and loyalty without be judgmental, which worked well for me. I would love to see a movie on this story-line. Now, I should read Joan’s other novels for sure.
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Let us chat
Do you like books with such flawed characters? What about books that scare you by being too close to reality? Do let me know what you think of the book or my review in the comments. Let us talk.
by Jenni Fagan. 
