Murder on the Orient Express

By Marlow Tracy

(no spoilers)

I recently finished reading And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, which I found to have too many murders and not enough clues. Despite the questionable amount of death, I liked the writing style of the book, so I picked up another well-known novel by the same author: Murder on the Orient Express. The story begins with the famous detective Hercule Poirot, whose journey on the Orient Express takes an unfortunate turn when one of the passengers is found stabbed to death with his compartment locked from the inside. With the train stranded on a snowdrift, Poirot must work quickly to find out which of his cabin-mates is the murderer using a series of obscure clues.

Before starting the novel, the concept of a story taking place on a train intrigued me. The confined setting creates character interactions that otherwise might never take place, and the lack of need for description forces the author to focus on advancing the plot and including important details instead of filler pages. A few years ago, I read through about half of Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein before becoming bored of the lengthy and cumbersome descriptions of the setting and the movements of characters and confused about the direction of the main plotline. Contrastingly, in Murder on the Orient Express, almost every scene is used to advance the plot. The writing is made up of mostly dialogue, which makes for a fast-paced, interesting writing style and distinct character personalities.

Near the beginning of the novel, M. Bouc, a friend of Poirot’s, comments on the romanticism of strangers traveling together on a train. Poirot suggests that the passengers may become connected if a train accident occurred: “Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together--by death” (24). Although a train accident wasn’t quite what happened, the line gives the reader a bit of insight into the future of the story. I love how the author includes plenty of foreshadowing details like this one, as well as providing lots of clues that let the reader speculate without giving too much away. Some murder mystery novels leave the reader literally ‘without a clue’ until the very end of the story to add weight to the final reveal, but having more clues and still not knowing what’s going on can make it all the more exciting when the case is finally figured out.

On the back of the book, it states that Agatha Christie is “the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.” Now, I understand why that is true. Murder on the Orient Express is a fast-paced novel full of interesting characters, intricate details, and mind-bending clues. It’s a super fun read and I would recommend it to anyone who likes murder mystery, detective novels, train stories, or just wants an interesting quick read. 10/10 good book (and now I need to go see the movie!).

(spoilers below this point!!!)

If you’ve read the novel or seen the movie, you will know that the murdered man (real name Cassetti) was stabbed to death cooperatively by almost all of his fellow train-car-mates, similarly to how Roman dictator Caesar was stabbed to death by his companions. The murder was an act of revenge for Cassetti’s brutal kidnapping and murder of an innocent child, and the subsequent suicide of one of her caretakers. Personally, I do not enjoy meaningless cold-blooded murder of the innocent, which is another of the reasons I liked this novel so much - the bad guy got what he deserved, and the good guys got away scott-free. Even though the victim’s true identity isn’t revealed until near the middle of the book, the author portrays him from the beginning as a generally unlikeable and potentially evil character. The reader is free to get caught up in the suspense of the novel while still being comforted by the fact that the murder itself was not an act of evil, but of justice for the victim’s wrongdoings.