“A ridiculous-looking little man. The sort of little man one could never take seriously.”
Hercule Poirot has just finished helping solve a problem for a friend in an Eastern European army and has boarded a train to start heading home. A cry is heard, a man is killed, the train is stuck in a snowstorm and Poirot will not have a minute’s peace. There is only one thing for sure in the investigation of the dead man – the murderer is on the Orient Express.
I am sure I read Murder on the Orient Express in high school when I read about every Agatha Christie book. While I’m not one who usually re-reads a book, I wanted to read this one again before I saw the movie that came out in the fall of 2017 based on the book. I honestly didn’t remember many of the details of the book at all anymore (more than 20 years will do that!). I did have to buy the ebook as the line to check out both the hard copy and ebook were both very long. I guess there are many people out there who also like to read the book before watching the movie.
The book takes the readers through Poirot’s investigation as he interviews the passengers one by one. At first, he surmises that two people both stabbed the victim, each thinking he or she was the one actually killing him. Poirot asks questions, takes handwriting samples and visits each room on the train. Finally after thinking a spell, he knows exactly how the man was murdered. I don’t know if many people will guess the ending!
I would highly recommend this book for any mystery lover. The nice thing about Agatha Christie books is they are not gruesome at all, so they are great for readers high school age or older. The recent movie was well done, but as I watched it, I wondered if people who hadn’t read the book would follow the storyline as well as people who did read the book. The movie also added parts of Hercule Poirot’s character that aren’t in this book.
