Murder on the Orient Express

I'd never read 'Murder On The Orient Express' or seen any of the movies so all I knew about it was that there was a murder on the Orient Express with Poirot conveniently aboard to investigate it and that it's a favourite book for many Agatha Christie fans.

I had a great time reading the book, going in blind. So, in case you haven't read it either, I'm not going to share any plot points here. I'm just going to talk about what made the books such fun.

What I liked most about this book was how playful it was. The humour starts from the first scene with Poirot engaged in an uncomfortable conversation about the weather with the French officer assigned to see him off on the train. It's a cinematic opening to the novel that dwells not on any show more sense of foreboding, or even on how exciting long-distance train travel across two continents could be but rather on the embarrassment caused to two men with nothing in common but the need to be polite to one another.

This sense of playfulness continues with small comedy of manners pieces throughout the book but the most playful aspect of the book is the puzzle itself.

The plot had the potential to be deeply boring. Someone gets killed. It seems likely that only people on a certain carriage on the train would have had the opportunity to commit the murder. You interview all the people one at a time in the dining car until you find out who did it. How static and tedious would that have been?

Christie turns it into something lively by having a set of characters, passengers and crew, of different nationalities, social class, trustworthiness and confidence and then adding a plot where every new piece of information seems to eliminate one or more of the suspects until, apart from the fact that there is a dead body, it would seem to have been impossible for the murder to have been committed. I found myself imagining Christie grinning as she twisted the plot one more time, challenging the reader to work it out.

The Orient Express, or at least the concept of the privilege and luxury and the unashamed 'we're here for the rich and titled' attitude, became a character in the book. The train, pushing through the winter snow on the mountains, became more like a ship far from shore.

Then there was the ending. It was perfect. I was grinning with childish delight when the solution to the puzzle was revealed. It was satisfying not just as an answer to a puzzle but as a solution I could cheer for.

I even liked Poirot in this book. Perhaps it was the absence of Hastings or the presence of so many larger-than-life characters, or that the people around him knew his reputation, but he seemed to do less grandstanding and made less reference to his 'method'. He just got on with the job and showed his skill for interviewing people and for analysing the information he gained from them. Not that any of that helped me solve the puzzle but it was fun to watch.

My enjoyment of the book was enhanced by listening to the audiobook version narrated by Dan Stevens. There are a couple of other audible versions around, one by Suchet and one by Branagh but I wanted a version that wasn't just a reprise of 'when I played Poirot'. After all, Poirot is rarely the most interesting character in the book. He works best as a mildly eccentric Dues ex Machina obsessed with the voluptuous richness of his moustaches. Dan Stevens did an excellent job of bringing the large and diverse cast of characters alive. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.


https://soundcloud.com/harpercollinspublishers/murder-on-the-orient-express-1 show less

Audiobook performed by Dan Stevens

Hercule Poirot must cut his trip to Istanbul short to return to London immediately. Unusual for this time of year, the first-class compartments on the Orient Express is entirely booked. An official of the line, recognizing Poirot, pulls some strings and gets him a berth on the crowded train. Awakening to find the train stopped due to a blizzard and snow on the tracks, the passengers mill about distractedly. Imagine everyone’s surprise to find that Mr Ratchet, a wealth American, is dead; he is found stabbed multiple times in his locked compartment. Given their stranded condition, the railroad official pleads with Poirot to head the investigation.

This is a traditional “locked room” mystery. show more Everyone in the first class coach is interviewed, and everyone has an airtight alibi. Bits of evidence are found – a mostly burnt scrap of paper, a bloody knife, the button off a conductor’s jacket, a pipe cleaner, an expensive hand-stitched lady’s handkerchief, etc – but rather than help solve the case they seem to further muddle the investigation. Christie is at the top of her game here. She populates the Orient Express with a wide variety of colorful characters – a Russian princess, an Italian-American car salesman, a count and countess with diplomatic immunity, a private detective, an English governess, a Swedish missionary nurse, a British colonel, a brash American tourist, etc. The train may be at a standstill, but the plot races forward. The final reveal is both surprising and ingenious – for there are two very different solutions to the case.

Dan Stevens does a fine job narrating the audio version. He has good pacing and is able to give the many characters distinct voices. I loved his Mrs Hubbard and Princess Dragomiroff! show less

Rating: 5* of five, mostly for the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation

The Publisher Says: Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. A passenger lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.

My Review: Well, that was a concise-to-the-point-of-terseness summary. But I suspect most of us who are voracious or even simply serious readers of mystery fiction don't need too much more than that to recall the details to mind.

The novel, published in 1934, is a bit of a stretch for a modern mystery-reader's sense of fair play. Poirot's famous/infamous "little show more gray cells" are pumpin' full-bore and lead him to near-miraculous feats of deduction. The novel's Poirot is, at the end, almost cavalier about the hugely out-of-character ending. It almost feels as if Christie said to herself, "Self, I've had enough of this character's ethics and am writing MY ending not his."

Her book, her rules.

The filmed version offers more scope for fair play with the reader as Poirot is seen to do things and discover things that lead him to a startling and evidently disturbing conclusion. In keeping with the films' expansion of the Poirot character, the book's resolution is more nuanced, and affords a modern viewer more satisfaction in that the character of Poirot is clearly emotionally involved in the murder's resolution and becomes a richer, more relatable person as a result.

Both versions of the story are so improbable as to be absurd, on the face of it. But in a world run on decent principles, such a story and such a resolution would be more common than not. I feel very Old-Testament-y about people who harm children or animals for cruelty or sport.

The film's other deviations from the novel are also deepening the sense of Poirot's reality as a person, and indicative of just how very surprising this ending is within the understanding Christie has given us of Poirot's essential relationship to crime-solving. A scene at the beginning of the film, between Poirot and a soldier, is particularly important in setting the tone for this story's exceptional place in the Poirot canon. Another early scene in Istanbul is, in my opinion, gratuitous; well conceived, but not necessary, and frankly unpleasant in the light it sheds on Poirot.

But the sheer visual beauty of this film! The pitch-perfect Poirot of David Suchet! Ah mes amis, this is the treat most exceptional, this feast is the repast most gustatorial for the lover of the how you call a crime drama. It is the pleasure most complete. Replenish yourselves and your little gray cells!


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less

It's a race against time when an avalanche stops the Orient Express on it's tracks just as a murder has been committed. The world's greatest detective, Hercule Poirot, must search for clues, interrogate all the passengers and solve the mystery before the train starts back up and the murderer can escape.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do a locked room mystery! There is a reason why this whodunit is such a classic. While I have read other Agatha Christie books in the past, this was my first Poirot book that I remember. His deductive style and this story in general is one of those that defined a genre. It's no wonder there have been so many homages over the years. The murder solution was both elegant and completely surprising. I show more did not expect that at all!

I listened to the audio book narrated by Kenneth Branagh. His performance is extraordinary and he does a wonderful job of bringing all the characters to life. If you're a fan of Branagh as an actor, you'll love him as a narrator. show less

I suppose I must've been around 10 at the time when I started digging into my dad's collection of horror stories and thrillers, most of which were old classic tales (mostly compilations of horror short stories, including Poe and the like and detectives like Simenon or Christie), supplemented by my own R.L. Stine era horror. We also watched a lot of detective series on TV: A Touch of Frost, Silent Witness and my favourite: Poirot!

Now I don't remember for sure if I started reading Christie because I enjoyed the TV series or if the two just coincided; the series has been running since the late 80s and is now close to having covered every Poirot story ever written. Unfortunately the latest installments seem to have turned Poirot into a show more grumpy, religious old man rather than the clever and quirky Poirot I grew up loving. It's still great to watch though, David Suchet's Poirot is perfect. In fact, whenever I see a different actor portraying him, it makes me physically sick.

Anyway, I loved the series, I loved Christie, or more specifically I loved Poirot, because I scanned the back covers of all the Christie omnibi to see which stories or novels included Poirot, because I sure as hell wasn't going to waste my precious time on Miss Marple!

Obviously, seeing as I was 10 (this is a rough estimate, I always have a lot of trouble sticking an age on life events, so I might have been 8, or 12 or something), I read all these stories in Dutch translation, which works quite well for old horror stories and detectives and either way my English proficiency wasn't quite up to scratch yet.

A while ago, I decided to revisit my old love and again searched through my dad's dusty long-time-no-read collection of books, I think it was induced by seeing half of a Poirot episode on TV or by listening to the old Poirot theme.

Please enjoy the smooth jazzy sounds of the exquisite Poirot theme song and savour the sight of David Suchet's big, bald, smiley head kaleidoscopically embracing your screen. I get a big nostalgia orgasm every time.


Soon enough, I found Moord in de Oriënt-express, which I remembered liking a lot. I started reading it, but quickly realised I couldn't deal with Poirot speaking Dutch. I tried to move past it, but I could only see David Suchet's face in my head, uttering Dutch lines, and it was just wrong, so wrong. So I put it away and ordered a used copy in English online. I don't think my dad would be too pleased if he found out I'm ordering books he already has. Tssk.

I'm happy to say, I still love Poirot. Not that he is all that loveable, really. He's an arrogant, elitist know-it-all, with a slightly worrying psychopathic streak. Sure, he doesn't kill anyone, but this guy adores murder and death. If some poor soul got brutally stabbed or viciously beaten to death everywhere Hercule went, he'd be a happy camper. One scene in particular made me laugh:

At one point in the beginning of the novel, when no one has been killed yet (spoilers! someone totally dies!), Poirot is sitting in the dining wagon with his friend, having a nice meal. His friend, Mr. Bouc, I believe, is mentioning to Poirot how nice it is that so many people of different nationalities and class are gathered here together, enjoying their voyage, only to go their separate ways again. Poirot then ventures an alternative turn of events, where all this lovey-dovey harmony is struck down SHOULD someone have a little accident, or you know, get brutally murdered.

What a buzzkill, that Hercule. A little creepy too. There you are eating a nice meal and celebrating the joys of life when your moustached friend starts getting all morbid. Now what Mr. Bouc should have said was probably something like: "Huh? What! Murdered? What are you on about? We're having a nice meal here and you can't shut up about lethal accidents and murder. What the fuck is wrong with you, dude?"

Sure enough, though, Poirot was right, one of those people, did get murdered. Funny how that works. Sometimes I think that Poirot sets up every murder he solves, just for the hell of it. It's awfully suspicious how he's always around murders and when he just plainly starts predicting them out of the blue, I wouldn't feel safe anymore.

There's some flaws in this, sure. Having been written in the 30s, it uses a lot of discriminating stereotypes when it comes to European ethnicities. Italians are passionate people, they stab. English people are basically robots, they'd never stab. Things like that, but in the end all these "facts" are not relevant to the solution, so to me it's only interesting to read a book in the 30s mindset. Besides, I'm Belgian, I come off fucking great. You won't hear me complaining.

Poirot's deductions and revelations are sometimes on the verge of psychic, which, I suppose, somewhat thwarts the reader in his quest to the solution. I did figure out the solution before I finished, but I'm guessing I didn't really solve it but just remembered the unravelling from when I read it so many years ago. I can't imagine that I actually figured it out. Quite unlikely, because, in my vision, it's not really a bad thing that you can't figure out the full array of things, because Poirot is supposed to outsmart everyone. He's supposed to know things you don't know, and draw conclusions you never would. If I weren't hopelessly outsmarted by Hercule Poirot, what kind of life would this be? Who would I look up to? Poirot is smarter than you and that's just how it should be, and I'm glad.

Finally, I'd like to say that I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have enjoyed this nearly as much as if it weren't for David Suchet. Even when Poirot is being a pompous dick, Suchet's comforting face appears in my head and everything he does turns from annoying to eccentrically charming and all is right with the world.

Je vous remercie, monsieur Suchet, mon ami. May your little grey cells continue to rage in full force. show less

‘’Some crimes God does not forgive!’’

Last week, I watched (for the gazillionth time…) ITV’s 2010 production of ‘’Murder on the Orient Express’’ with the inimitable David Suchet in the role of our beloved Hercule Poirot and it prompted certain thoughts in my mind. Why is this considered one of Christie’s finest creations? Many say that, arguably, it is her best work and this view I do share.

I don’t think any of us need a synopsis. To say the story is well-known would be an understatement. Even people who haven’t read the book know of the outstanding outcome and the resolution of, possibly, the most controversial murder (but is it a ‘’crime’’?) in Christie’s marvellous works. So what is it that makes show more this novel by the Lady of Crime so iconic and a point of reference?

Is is the exceptional cast of characters, each one battling with the demons of the past? Is it the wintry atmosphere? The intense feeling of claustrophobia, of being trapped in a train, within a snowstorm, in a foreign country with a dead body lying in a compartment? Or is it the absolute, ultimate questioning of the moral values we have come to adopt? What is right and wrong? When injustice isn’t punished, to what extent can we bend the human limits? God and Law can’t always protect us...Here, Hercule discovers that his little grey cells are only a small part of the solution. It is his heart that has to do the rest.

This is a jewel not only of Crime Fiction, but of Literature in general, regardless of the genre. A work that doesn’t ask the reader to think of the ‘’who has done it’’ question, but to contemplate on the ‘’what would you have done’’ issue. And as for me, I fully agree with Greta Ohlsson. Some crimes God doesn’t forgive…. show less

My only knowledge of Agatha Christie before this novel was that she wrote for the near-elderly: her stories encompassed the small paperbacks my grandmother had read cover to cover, these said paperbacks made an equal multitude of PBS dramas ripe for the over 50 crowd, and these Poirot-Marple stories felt like an impossible canon to work through. Think if you will staring in awe at the Magic Treehouse series as a small child, the beat up spines lining up like an invading army on that sad, school bookshelf. That was my feeling looking at Christie's novels. The age thing didn't help me either, and it was just something I was going to pass on, unfortunately.

But alas, bookclub got me reading something I wouldn't have picked up had the show more opportunity not arisen, and paired with my interest at the current film, I chose it. The story is simple — a man is murdered that the reader has interacted with for a scene or two — and then it's up to our master detective to figure out what ensued. I like the neatness of the plot and the simplicity that Christie writes in, and it let me get into thick of the plot more so than I usually do. The smattering of french was also welcome, and threw me for a loop on one or two verbs (quel scandale!). I'd watched a travel video or two on the Simplon-Orient Express that runs through Europe, and I had a lot of fun imagining the drama ensuing between the lacquered wood walls and sleek elegance of the train car by the equally opulent characters that inhabited then.

As you can gather, this was my first Agatha Christie book — and I completely fell in love with it. The biggest thing that separates 4s from 5s is how much i get into it. I found myself barely looking at how many pages I had left in a chapter, and bringing it everywhere I could once things got good. I think the reason why I loved it so much was the neat and riveting plot, and I don't read books like that often! I've always felt like I had to get through as much of the literary canon as I could before I read purely for "pleasure", and it shows sorely in my read list. I joined my school's book club to start reading things out of my usual genres, and though this fall a bit on the "historical" and "classic" side, I probably wouldn't have picked it up because of what I'd heard about Christie novels.


There were only 2 things that I didn't like about the novel, and that was the lack of clues given to us to piece together beforehand and the resolution of the drama. I've read about a quarter of the Sherlock Holmes canon and I can't tell you how much I resented the stories where I had no semblance of a chance of figuring the mystery out; things like that make the story out to be the shoddy BBC Sherlock deus ex machinas we all grew to hate. I argued a little with another book-clubber on my last point as well, but I didn't like the abruptness of the end. To go 300 pages investing in the drama of the characters and death, following a detective determined to find the killer and bring them to justice only to wrap it up on 1 page felt too lazy. I understand and appreciated the characters getting off for the vigilante justice aspect of the case, but... that's it? I felt cheated. I almost wanted them all to go the big house, at least I'd get the satisfaction of "justice" I'd been hell-bent on since Poirot took the case. A twist ending and peaceful resolution? Sure, but for me, it was still a letdown.

I don't know if I'll pick up an Agatha Christie book in the immediate future, but I'd definitely like to read some of her others when I have the time. Thanks bookclub, thanks grandma for reassuring me they are in fact good, and thanks Hollywood for making an interesting enough trailer for me to read to finally read it :") show less