Book #286 – The Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Let’s start this Halloween read with the queen of murder mystery herself, Agatha Christie. Now, the book itself may not be a spine chilling as more modern day thrillers, but I think the perfect way to start any spooky reading list is with a little mystery and murder.

Originally published under the title Murder in the Calais Coach in 1934, this is actually the tenth novel in the Hercule Poirot series, which contains around 40 books. Poirot was a very busy detective, apparently. In fact, Poirot was a long running series from 1989 to 2013 on LWT in London, and PBS/A&E in the US. Murder on the Orient Express itself has been made into film in 1974 and recently in 2017.

The story itself follows Poirot’s investigations into a late night murder of a patron on the Orient Express on its journey from through Serbia and Croatia. Poirot is called upon by an old acquaintance to solve the murder by interrogating the remaining occupants of the locked train coach. If you’ve ever played Clue, then you sort of know where this is going.

The thing about Agatha Christie is that her characters are pretty flat, and only given depth if its needed for her grand puzzle to resolve itself. Thankfully, the cast of characters in this particular very from mundane conductor to Russian princess, so there’s a variety that is pretty interesting. Christie also does a pretty good job describing people, so the characters look nice, even if the reader doesn’t know a whole lot about them. They are, for the most part, very intricate puzzle pieces for Christie’s true agenda, the mystery. Which isn’t bad, unless you’re wanting to actually connect with a character other than Poirot.

Where Agatha Christie excels is her story weaving, and setting up the puzzle for the big reveal at the end. In this particular mystery, it’s split into 3 sections. The first, the rising action introduces the characters and the situation. The second presents all evidence through interviews with the collective cast and items found at the scene of the crime. The third section is Poirot pulling revelations from the inconsistencies in the initial interviews. Like any good mystery reader, I had my guesses by the time the evidence started being laid out. Was I wrong? Yeah, I didn’t see that ending coming.

Possibly the most interesting thing about Poirot’s rumination on the evidence section is how he’s able to read the characters to uncover any half-truths. In an age where most procedural shows now include facial recognition or social media to locate past lives, it’s interesting to have someone be able to uncover the truth by simply reading hesitation in identifying a piece of evidence.

Overall, I really liked how this mystery unfolded, and look forward to reading through the other Agatha Christie novels on the list. I’d say if you like puzzles, you’ll probably like trying to solve this one before Poirot.

If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, he will usually admit it – often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect. – Agatha Christie

If you like the review, please like and comment. You can also follow me for more reviews as I read through the list. And if you want a copy of the book for yourself, simply click on the book’s image to go directly to it’s page on Amazon.