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On a three-day journey through the snowbound Balkan hills, Hercule Poirot must weed through an array of international suspects to find the passenger who murdered a gangster on the Orient Express.
I have recently gotten on an Agatha Christie kick again since the recent release of the Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice in theaters. One of my favorite Christie mysteries is Murder on the Orient Express which was made into a film a few years ago. Agatha was made a Dame in her lifetime and she wrote 66 novels and 14 short story collections. She wrote the longest running play Mousetrap. Guiness Book of World Records has named her the best selling writer of fiction with her selling of two billion copies. Murder was made into two films for cinema and five tv adaptions from around the world. Her works have been made for the stage, comics, and as a board game.
Orient Express begins on a train that famed detective Hercule Poirot has taken. He meets a seedy American businessman Samuel Ratchett who claims that he has had some death threats made against him. He would like to hire Poirot to be his own private detective however is denied by Hercule who claims, “I will not take your case because I do not like your face”. Poirot hears a noise from Ratchett’s cabin in the middle of the night. Several witnesses have claimed that they have seen a woman in a red Kimono mysteriously slinking near the victim’s cabin. Ratchett was stabbed fourteen times and Poirot had fourteen possible suspects to interview since the train has stalled in the ice and no one is going anywhere. There is also a large number of clues left at the scene. The cast of suspects is large even by Christie standards consisting of a Russian Princess, a Swedish Missionary, a Hungarian Count and a Italian American car salesman. Are all of these people really who they seem? Poirot interviews everyone and by the time the tale is done and the murderer or murderers are revealed, Christie reveals one of her most surprise endings ever.
This is an excellent first novel to read by Christie if one is unfamiliar with her style. It is one of my favorites of her novels due to the surprise ending mentioned. Christie's dialogue and style hold up remarkably well in modern times. Kenneth Branagh has easily been able to bring these stories to modern movie audiences and the novels still sell . Her characters are interesting and mysterious and will have the reader confounded till the end as to who the culprits are. Poirot next to Miss Marple is one of Christie’s most interesting characters. He is quirky, extremely intelligent and inquisitive, and very determined to catch the murder culprit. Christie often takes her mysteries to exotic locales and this story is no different with its scenes of snowy Croatia where the train is stalled, emphasizing isolation. The author will take you on a wild ride and her work can compete with any of our modern day thrillers. - Van, Reference Librarian