4:50 FROM PADDINGTON

Oh, the contentment of settling down with an Agatha Christie--the happy anticipation of mystery and deceit. This 1957 Miss Marple offers the satisfaction of her solution to the murder witnessed by her friend Elspeth McGillicuddy as one train runs momentarily beside another. Before her recent death, Joan Hickson personified Miss Marple in 12 of the Christie books adapted for television by the BBC. The series seen in the States on PBS and A&E-TV is generally regarded as the most faithful adaptation of Christie's Miss Marple books. On the television and in this audiobook, recorded in 1994, Hickson simply IS the mild, elderly, deceptively parochial lady with piercing insight into human wrongdoing. She also manages to inhabit the other characters in this book beautifully, not so much by creating voices, as by variations in diction and speech rhythm. Her voice is old, yet strong, and her pacing is superb. Rarely have Christie's quiet humor and wry characterizations been so clearly voiced. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/ JAN 02]