I had a very good time with this one. Especially the beginning and ending. (The middle did get a bit squidgy.)
The premise of this one has Miss Marple in it from the beginning, which is always nice, but even when that happens, she still takes a backseat in her own books. This time, it’s because she says she’s too old now to do her own footwork, so she enlists the services of Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow to help her search for a body. The set up on this one is really fun. I mean, as fun as murders can be. You know. Whatever I’m not going to justify my liking for murder mysteries. It is FUN. So anyway, Miss Marple’s friend Elspeth just so happens to look over at the train running parallel to hers just in time to see a man strangling a woman. She is extremely shaken and reports it immediately, but no one believes her (no body has been found) except Miss Marple. Hence, the hiring of Miss Eyelesbarrow.
The part where they are searching for the body was so good. I also enjoyed what happened after they narrowed the location down, although it did turn into a bit of a different book (and got squidgy in the middle) but as the end approached, it picked back up again and got interesting. I also liked a lot of the characters in this one, including Miss Eyelesbarrow, and even the hateful ones were interesting. How they identify they murderer actually was very funny, which was something new for Christie, although it’s full of her signature cleverness.
A good book to Cannonball on, and Emilia Fox does a great job with the narration. One of my favorite Marples.