Thursday, May 30, 2024

Agatha Christie: 4:50 from Paddington

 Usually after reading a Christie, my thought is, "She did it again!  She got me!"  Even as used as I am to her mastery, and to being toyed with and manipulated, she still somehow manages to get around my canny reading, and flip me back in my chair with appreciation.  Usually.

In this one, she definitely did not do "it". Whereas the ending of her little games usually makes a delightful sense in retrospect, this one does not.  It almost seems unfair, to the extent that it was ever a game at all.  No, this one was no puzzle, and even less so an elegant and satisfying one.  It was a mere story, one that concluded with a nonplussed "huh."

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