I’ve been re-reading one of my favorite Agatha Christies, the 4:50 from Paddington. It really is a fully imagined novel, with all sorts of lively characters, including the eyewitness, Mrs. McGillicuddy, and the wonderfully, refreshingly competent Lucy Eyelesbarrow. Lucy is a particularly wonderful character because everybody around her falls in love with her, and to my best recollection, Christie never describes Lucy’s physically at all. She just gets shit done and possesses both tact and a sparkling intelligence.

One best bit from the 4:50 from Paddington has the redoubtable Miss Marple getting on trains, looking at train schedules, and cadging some maps to do a geographic analysis of sorts to find the probable

This got me thinking about novels that have an important train aspect to them. There’s obviously Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on A Train . And, of course, more Christie: Murder on the Orient Express. Speaking of the Orient Express, there’s Ian Fleming’s From Russia With Love.

I can’t think of any more. Suggestions?