Murder on the Orient Express. By: Agatha Christie

The stage is set, a world class private detective on an exotic train, with eccentric passengers. A blizzard which forces the train to get stuck in no man’s land and of course, as the title gives away, there is murder.

I personally feel that to get published in the 30’s or 40’ was no small task, the audience was limited owing to the lack of education in the masses and printed word was the was still the best form of entertainment in the world. I have read about how people would pay someone to come to their house or dinner parties and read a book or passage of plays for entertainment. It was the Netflix of it's time.

“The great Belgian detective's guesses are more than shrewd; they are positively miraculous. Although both the murder plot and the solution verge upon the impossible, Agatha Christie has contrived to make them appear quite convincing for the time being, and what more than that can a mystery addict desire?"- The Guardian-12th Jan 1934

Short Summary:

First published in 1930’s, ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ is a fascinating and intriguing murder mystery written by the queen of thrillers ‘Agatha Christie’.

Circumstances put world renowned private detective ‘Hercule Poirot’ who was on a vacation in London on the famous ‘Orient Express’ the pride and joy of ‘Internationale des Wagon’ (The company which owned the Train).

Having been a famous detective Hercule Poirot was used to travelling first class but for some reason all the first-class seats on the train were booked, much to the amazement of the concierge at the hotel. Poirot eventually gets a berth on the overnight train back to France but only in the second-class compartment after pulling some stings with help of the companies Director.

The stage is set, a world class private detective on an exotic train, with eccentric passengers. A blizzard forces the train to get stuck in no man’s land and of course, as the title gives away, there is murder.

Hercule Poirot is reluctant to take the case as the person who was murdered was not liked by him, but seeing that the train is not going anywhere, Hercule Poirot takes the murder on. What follows is a workshop on how a murder is presented.

My review:

The true value of any art form for me is weather it can stand the test of time. Can it Transcend generations and still be popular? Detective Hercule Poirot is certainly one of Agatha Cristies legendary characters appearing in over 33 of her novel, 50 short plays, various television series, plays and even feature films. Even though it was the first time that I met him, the sincerity of her words when she writes ‘he is a world-famous detective’ convinces me of it and I never for a moment doubt him to be anything but that.

This is what you call an interrogation base crime. As we get on with solving the crime, we are in a very systematic and controlled environment introduced to each character on the train. Each of the characters ins introduced in a sequence and there is a logical explanation given to that, so as a reader you always have an eye on the price. The characters are all very well thought out, each of them has rich backstory, which is well written, they have all seemingly gathered here randomly ad without any context but obviously there is something fishy going on.

The murder itself is a great mystery, the victim was stabbed 13 times, the killer appeared to be a man, a woman, as strong and youthful person and a weakling all at the same time while also being right and left-handed. A Murder well written indeed.

The writing is simple, there are no attempts to use hyperbole to exaggerate or to drive appoint home. The story moves in a linear way is easy to follow and understand. Though I do not yet understand the various techniques of writing, I am confident that the one used here by Augutha is a fantastic one.

Another tribute to the time is the way stereotypes are portrayed and how in the end they are proven to be wrong. There is no way a novel with this kind of writing gets published in today.

My take:

The mystery about the book was the Murder on the Orient Express, the feelings that I got while reading the book was exactly as anticipated. The true credit to the novel was the fact that they decided to make a big block buster movie about it in 2019 a good 87 years after being first published