Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

The Book

    Hercule Poirot is travelling back home after being in Syria. His boards the famous Orient Express train which is inexplicably overbooked. Her must share a room with Mr. MacQueen. While there, he refuses to take a case of a wealthy American, Mr. Rachett. One has to wonder if his failures in Murder on the Links and Peril at End House are weighing heavily on him, or if he is just preoccupied with getting home. Rachett, nonetheless explains that he fears he is going to be murdered. Poirot, while sympathetic, refuses. 

    Of course, Rachett is murder just a few hours later, and Poirot takes up the case out of his guilty conscious. Along the way Poirot discovers that nearly everybody on this over crowded train had a reason to want Rachett dead. It will take all of Poirot's methods, and every single one of his little grey cells for Poirot to sift fact from fiction and arrive at the truth in this most famous of Agatha Christie novels. 

My Thoughts

    I have heard many a respected reviewer talk about how once you know the twist of this book, it is not as much fun to read. Might I just take a quick moment to DISAGREE? 

    I have seen several of the movie and TV adaptations of this book, so I know how it ends. (Side note, I just LOVE Kenneth Branagh as Poirot, I mean NOBODY can beat David Suchet in the role, but Branagh is delightful with his charisma...but I digress.) I know the plot twist inside and out, having watched several of the performances multiple times. But...I had never read the book. I've never been certain when watching the movies, if I had ever read it, it always seemed vaguely familiar to me. But...when I had the book in hand, I knew I had not read it before. It is simply delightful to read. It's the kind of book that is both easy to read, the sentences are tight, cogent and most importantly evocative. Christie sometimes has a way of describing a character in just a word or two and creating a picture inside of my head. There are several of those in this book, and I remembered none of them. Nor do I think I would have guessed it from the adaptations, as several of the characteristics were never mentioned out loud. 

    Moreover, knowing the twist, it is quite easy to settle into this book and look for the clues. It's a great way for my writer brain to figure out how to plant clues, and where they are and how. I might pick up a copy of this book just to keep it around, but for now, this little paperback goes back to the library where another reader might be able to enjoy it. 

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

This book entered my library on September 21, 2017 and is one of the William Morrow paperbacks from HarperCollins. It has been well read, and lightly. Having said that, the cover is beginning to show some wear. There are a few more good reads in this book, but I'm certain the days this particular copy have in the library are numbered. We have a new corrector of record inside the pages of this book. One who has marked it in BLUE INK! Noooooooooooo. Please, I implore you not to mark a library book in ink! There is a suspect list and where they slept on the train and the suspects are marked off in ink. While it doesn't give away the plot twist, it is just a little bit distracting to read someone else's process of elimination while studying the diagram. The book cost $13.99.

This Book                 $13.99

This Summer.         $634.83

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