Christie, the Queen of Mystery: "Murder on the Orient Express" BOOK REVIEW

Title: Murder on the Orient Express
Author: Agatha Christie 
Publication Date:  1934
Genre: Murder Mystery, Detective Fiction
My Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Favourite Quote:  "The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances." - Hercule Poirot

"Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer. An American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Isolated and with a killer in their midst, detective Hercule Poirot must identify the murderer – in case he or she decides to strike again." 



How can every single person in a carriage have an alibi for a murder?

For someone who loves playing guessing games, I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't picked up an Agatha Christie book until a couple of weeks ago. Christie is the mistress of the whodunnit genre, Murder on the Orient Express being classed as the best of her 82 (Yes, 82 can-you-believe it?)  detective novels.

"All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never perhaps to see each other again."

"And yet," said Poirot, "suppose an accident…”

Let me just say, i'm so glad that I read the book before I watched the 2017 film adaption, otherwise, I never would've picked it up! The book did not get the justice it deserved (but that's a whole new discussion for another time!)

The novel takes place in an archetypal cut-off environment, a snowbound train with no communications with the outside world. From beginning to end, this book takes you on a journey to find out who the killer was and their motive behind the murder.

Who comes to mind when I ask you of the greatest detective in the whole of the fictional universe?  Because for me, it's private detective, Hercule Poirot, the main protagonist of the novel.  He's quirky, logical and smart, drawing on stereotypes introduced by Sherlock Holes, such as the extraordinarily talented and secluded intellectual. Poirot, however, whilst he prefers solidarity, integrates with society in a polite and courteous manner.

Let me tell you, Poirot jumps to the wildest conclusion based on what could be, at best, considered evidence, and at worst, a random piece of contextless information.  How I wish I could be as clever as Poirot. He makes wild guesses and still gets it right. 

"It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash. This compartment is full of clues, but can I be sure that those clues are really what they seem to be?"

Christie employs a great deal of dialogue, which I think was one of her real strengths as a writer. I'm a big fan of dialogue over description, so of course, this was a tick for me.  The dialogue was the most interesting when Poirot was interviewing his suspects because he uses a different approach depending on the person sitting in front of him. He's all about analysing someone's temperament and psychology. At first, I thought, 'well...these questions he's asking and gestures he's detailing are unimportant', but of course, they're not. They always lead to something significant that you didn't think would matter or think of before- which is something I really admired from Christie's ability to plot meticulously. 


The novel's very methodical in the way it's written.  It's split into three parts: "The Facts", "The Evidence" and "Hercule Poirot Sits Back and Thinks" (i.e. Murder Solved). Part two was my favourite section of the book where Poirot interrogates the passengers. Who's handkerchief was left in the dead man's compartment? Was a cigar dropped by accident or on purpose? Who's the phantom-like figure in the scarlet kimono that Poirot sees running away down the corridor? It all forms part of a growing body of crucial evidence. 

 The flow of dialogue with the slow unravelling of clues kept me intrigued and interested throughout the whole novel. What's great about it is we, as readers are given the opportunity to engage in the same process of elimination of certain passengers as Detective Poirot throughout the investigation, with plentiful clues and false clues. I had so many theories, but I failed to guess any of them correctly! That always seems to be the case when I read mystery novels. I'm so confident with my theories yet i'm never right- usually way off- and I suppose that's the fun of it. If you were always right about the ending of a book what would be the point in reading it? You take away the anticipation of knowing how it resolves. 

After reading this book, I realised that I wouldn't be a good detective. At all. I'd  be more like Poirot's comical right-hand man, M. Bouc who just "hmms" and "ahh's", agreeing with anything Poiorot says. I mean, c'mon he's the world's greatest detective, you gotta agree he's better than any of us at figuring this stuff out.


Another thing I loved about this book is that, despite it being a  serious crime investigation, Christie finds a way to use black comedy, (one of my personal favourite forms of comedy) and I loved Poirot's use of brutal honesty:

"At the small table, sitting very upright was one of the ugliest old ladies he has ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction- it fascinated rather than repelled."  

I literally laughed out loud at that description, it's so savage. 


So why not 5 stars if you loved it?
Well, there are a couple of things I didn't really like, one of them being Christie'sprejudices. It is well-known that Christie can be quite old-fashioned to the point of being offensive. Take, for example, her readiness to believe that different nationalities are all of the same types- You're Italian? Well, then you're almost definitely violent and totally suspicious compared to the Englishmen or American. You're a woman? Oh, well you can't have committed this crime, silly! You're too weak and dainty to murder someone!  So yes, these assumptions annoyed me a bit. Saying this though, I had to keep reminding myself that this was written 84 years ago, and in the 1930's these were the embedded sterotypes.

 Another thing which made me reluctant to give it a 5-star rating was the formation of the ending. The wrapping up of the mystery expanded over about 6 pages in a quick and compact way. There was a lot to take in, and I had to re-read those pages carefully to make sense of how Poirot came to his conclusions. Though saying this, I was kept in suspense till the last moment and satisfied that everything made sense (you may disagree, perhaps) and that's what I like from a mystery novel.

So...if you enjoy a good detective mystery with twists that keep you guessing to the very end, then you will certainly love this novel! Seriously, don't hesitate to pick up this captivating book otherwise you could miss out on one of the greatest mystery stories you've ever read! 


A final thought...

***SPOILER***

In the end, there is a reluctance to condemn the act of murder because of the reason it was committed. I think the problem with this is that murder is murder. End of. That's something we have to keep reminding ourselves. If we begin to justify some murder's over others, regardless of the intentions or motivations, it creates a slippery slope of vigilante justice, don't you think? 





Have you read Murder on the Orient Express and loved it, or even hated it?

Do you have any other Agatha Christie novels or crime mysteries that you think are great and are a must-read? 

I'd love to know!