Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie

Berkeley

336 Pages

Welcome to the Classics Tour stop highlighting The Golden Age of Detectives.  There are three reasons I read this book.

1. -I bought it around this past Halloween after seeing it on a display there.
2. -I have been meaning to read Agatha Christie for awhile now, so this tour was the perfect chance to do it.
3. -I have been yearning to read mysteries for the past month now.

So you see, reading Murder on the Orient Express killed a lot of birds with one stone. 

First off, you should probably be aware that thus is a Hercule Poirot book, meaning that it centers around the detective by that name, also featured in many of Christie’s other works.  Hercule is traveling home after an investigation aboard the Orient Express when, all of a sudden, the train is brought to a halt, both literally and metaphorically.  You see, they are stopped by a huge blizzard around the same time as an American businessman is killed in his room.  It becomes apparent straight off that the killer has to be someone that is actually on the train.  Poirot is quickly appointed as the investigator of the murder and he sets forth searching the train as well as interviewing the other inhabitants.

Obviously I have no wish to spoil the storyline for you.  I will just say that a lot of strange clues are unearthed and the actual culprit was not whom I expected.  The one person whom I suspected almost straight off the bat seemed culpable from almost the beginning but at the same time I figured it would have been too easy had I discovered the killer straight off, so I figured I had been wrong. 

I think Christie does a great job of weaving together a good mystery, although I only have this one book to go by.  It was absolutely charming and a quick, engaging read.  It induced me to try to read more of Christie’s books, so I have reserved her very first book from my library, which I understand is also a Hercule Poirot book. 

Also, I discovered a fun Agatha Christie challenge! The Agatha Christie Reading Challenge  is a perpetual challenge hosted by Mysteries in Paradise and the goal is to read all of Christie’s books in the order in which they were written.  From what I understand, there are 87 books out there, of which I believe 60 some are actual novels while the rest are short story collections.  I very well could be wrong on this though.  Apparently she also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, but whether those books are part of the challenge, I cannot say.  Either way, I do hope to read as many of Agatha Christie’s books as possible, although I plan to skip the short stories and the romances.

What about you?  Are you a fan of Christie’s?  If so, what books of hers are your favorites? 

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A Library is a Hospital for the Mind . . .

Mysteries in Paradise

I bought this book from Barnes & Noble