Neatly folded on the top of the case was a thin scarlet silk kimono embroidered with dragons.
“So,” he murmured. “It is like that. A defiance. Very well. I take it up.”
This is my first Agatha Christie and my introduction to the famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. As a novice Christie reader and one who doesn’t read crime fiction all I can say is…the ending! Was it obvious to more seasoned readers? It took me by surprise even after it was revealed the passengers knew each other and the further revelation they were connected due to a celebrated murder case in the States. Such is my inability to ever figure out, “whodunit.”
The story takes place aboard the luxury train Orient Express which is departing Istanbul, destination London. In the first class section we are introduced to an international cast of people whose actions, glances, presence seem suspicious or at least that’s the perspective of M. Poirot, the famed international detective, that oddly from my perspective, a name everyone seems to know. Once the murder is committed he looks at everyone as a subject. Is this a trait of his profession or is it because everyone IS a suspect? Most of the passengers pertinent to the story are stereotypes of culture and country including, a loud wealthy American woman, the prim and proper female missionary, an English governess, a Russian princess and her devoted maid, a suspicious Italian, a count and countess and a private investigator. Among the other passengers is the murdered man’s secretary and translator, and his valet.
When the passengers awake on the first morning of the journey, they find the train is not moving having come to a standstill in the middle of the night due to do a snowstorm. Coincidentally, it is discovered one of the passengers has been murdered, American tycoon Samuel Ratchett. He had come to Poirot the night before asking him to investigate the threatening letters he’d been receiving, but Poirot refused the case. Now, he’s declared himself in charge of Ratchett’s murder investigation. Examining the victim’s body he finds 12 stab wounds and looking through his cabin among other evidence he sees the window is open, a pipe cleaner and a fragment of a handkerchief are on the floor as well as a bit of burned paper with the name ‘Armstrong’ still visible. A detail to come later is the brief sighting of a woman in a scarlet kimono flitting down a corridor that some of the passengers noticed…or did they, though no one saw the face?
As the suspects are interviewed, Poirot weighs and measures their alibis that seem plausible and honest, until he finally pieces together how each is connected to one another and to the murdered man…..
This is basically a police procedural and it was interesting to see the French detective’s investigative skills. But to be honest, I had some trouble keeping the many characters’ accounts straight and was certain this would prevent my understanding the outcome. But the process of Poirot’s deductive methods drew me as did the variety of characters and their stories that kept the narrative moving. I read on anxious to find out the killer. And boy, I did not see that coming!
Title: Murder on the Orient Express
Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: William Morrow
Date: 1934
Device: Trade paperback
Pages: 265
Challenge: Classics Club, Back to the Classics, Mount TBR
I need to put some Christie and Holmes on my next classics club list, I feel a bit behind with them all – this does sound good, I like a jaw-dropping ending!
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I am so pleased you enjoyed this, Laurie! It was my first Agatha Christie I read too and I didn’t figure out who-dunnit either! I haven’t watched the newer film of it, but I do love the TV film starring the brilliant David Suchet – For me, he IS Poirot! 😍
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Hmm, I am going to have to look for the films!
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So glad you enjoyed your first Christie! If you think the ending of this one was jaw-dropping, you should read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd… 😀
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I’ve made a note of this. Now you have me intrigued!
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Bwahaha – my evil plan has worked! 😀
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😱
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I found I enjoyed the book much more than the movie adaptations. And Christie is a master of concealing the criminal however she sometimes cheats to do it. Nevertheless, mostly all of her books are worthwhile reads. Such fun!
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I have gotten recommends for two other titles, so at some point I’ll try them. I did like this in general and I bet a filmed version, with the right actors, would be very entertaining.
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I love Agatha Christie and read a lot of crime fiction, but I still almost never figure out the solution – although with this particular book, I already knew how it would end because I had seen one of the adaptations. Christie wrote a good variety of books, with very different plots and structures. My favourite is one of her standalones, And Then There Were None.
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Thank you, Helen. You are the second person to recommend And then there were None, so that’s the next one I’ll try 🙂
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I can only take so much Agatha Christie, and then I have to leave her for a decade or two. (Ditto that Holmes guy and his doctor friend.) But I did appreciate a novel which she wrote as Mary Westmacott (https://wp.me/s2oNj1-absent) psychologically much more interesting than the four or five whodunits of hers I’ve read.
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Interesting. I didn’t know she wrote under a different name, too.
That Holmes guy? Haven’t read him yet, either. But I feel I have to try something at some point, just to say I did!
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I’ve found Christie’s plots and characters easier to keep straight if I’ve seen the filmed version first. I realize that’s cheating, but otherwise, like you, I’d lose track of who’s who in the novels. David Suchet’s Poirot is my favorite depiction.
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Hi Lizzie! Good point about the films in this case. Are there always so many suspects in her books? This was a little excessive, I thought, but I don’t know from anything else.
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There always has to be a few red herrings. If the murderer is obvious, there’s nothing left of the plot. But Orient Express is the only Christie mystery with multiple killers.
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This one’s resolution is on the unique side! “Why does everyone on this train LIE?”
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Haha! I know. How do we figure out the crime if the criminals lie😁
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I could never get into the Christie books. So much seemed to hang on one or more small plot details that were impossible to deduce, unless you were Poirot. PS he’s a Belgian detective, not French!
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Yikes, I will fix that! Thank you.
That seems unfair to the reader if that’s how Christie tells her stories. I don’t think this will be my last of her books, but I will keep this in mind.
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I’m sure Hercule understands.
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