Murder on the Orient Express Book Review

Rawr Reader,

   This is my second Agatha Christie novel and this one caught my eye first, but I ended up reading And Then There Were None first, and after loving that one I knew I needed to read this one next. :)
   The excerpt on Goodreads didn't give a synopsis so I needed to type it out:

    Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. One of his fellow passengers must be the murderer. 

   Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man's enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.

Reference:

   Ms. Christie is one of my favorite authors, and I've only read one of her books before. I found this book first to be the most interesting though I read another one of her other stand alone novels before this one. 

Review:

(safe for those who haven't read this book yet)

  Alright this is a murder mystery that occurs on a train that has unexpectedly stopped due to the blizzard. This is my first Hercule Poirot mystery, and it took a little to get used to how it was structured, but the language was beautiful so I enjoyed the story nonetheless. So many Madamoiselles and Monseiurs (sorry I butcher the spellings) I didn't find it distracting. This was set in the 1930's I believe, and it was nice to read a book where people actually treated each other with respect-- even a murder mystery.

   There were times when the characters would speak in French and then I would have to look up the translations, but I just found it was something new to learn, and it fit with the characters and flowed so smoothly.

   In the Divergent review preceding this one I commented saying how lately in most books that I've been reading, I haven't taken a liking to the main character. However for the famous detective Hercule Poirot (with a name like that I have to love it), I really enjoyed his character and his deductions. He reminded me a lot of Sherlock Holmes from the BBC tv show Sherlock, but a little bit more with a heart and manners. :P

    There were a lot of characters, as may be in a murder mystery, however it wasn't hard to differentiate the passengers from one another; even with their names so similar. In my opinion I felt I was in harmony with M. Bouc, in the sense that he would question Poirot like a normal person would. 

    There isn't much I can say about this book without revealing too much, but I had a guess about who the murderer was when Poirot began to "sit back and think" and I was right. Sort of. ;)
     While I did and still do enjoy this story, I have to say I prefer And Then There Were None to this one. Though both are fantastic and I would recommend any of her books. Even if I've only read two of her many novels.

I give this book 4/5 stars. I really liked it and recommend it, and I'd read it again to find the parts I missed first time reading. 

Author's Quote:

“Everyone is a potential murderer-in everyone there arises from time to time the wish to kill-though not the will to kill.” 

― Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

If You'd Like to Check Out My Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7170636-nicole

Next To Read:
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

River Song's Spoilers:

(unsafe for those who haven't read this book yet, so don't read this section)

   I need to ask if anyone else began to suspect M. Bouc? I mean yes I haven't read the cases Poirot had taken before and this thought might have been absurd-- but when everyone began to admit to knowing the Armstrong family, I was waiting for him to come out and say it too. 

   Mrs. Hubbard began to become suspicious to me about the time when the knife was discovered in her bag. Not only was she freaking out when she "saw" a man come into her room, but she was just too innocent for my taste. Like if this murderer was seen-- even a silhouette-- I would have assumed he would have wanted to get rid of an eye witness. Especially if he wanted to get rid of any liabilities. Unless he wanted to keep another person on the train-- one more to cast the blame on. However, that was all revealed by the end.

    Which brings me to the end... I liked how Linda Arden finally revealed herself and explained everything, but I found it too rushed. Even the ending, when Poirot "retired" from the case, it was too cut and dry. I didn't soak the truth that much. Maybe it was better delivered in a film medium, which I'm actually interested in seeing since there are several adaptions, but for a book, not so much. Maybe this is the way Ms. Christie ends all of her other Poirot and Miss Marple books? If that's the case, I won't enjoy any of her endings as much. Oh well, I guess I'll have to just read other ones to be sure. 

    With Miss Marple, I want to see how Ms. Christie goes about solving mysteries from a woman's point of view. I found Sherlock and Poirot's deductions very similar (though I haven't read any of Sherlock's stories, I've watched several films). So I'm curious if the fact the detective is a woman if it changes the mystery to be easier or harder to solve. While this does take into consideration different people with different intelligence levels, it would be interesting to see why Ms. Christie chose to have two different detectives instead of all the mysteries to be solved by Poirot or all by Marple. I would suppose Ms. Christie did't want to leave the women hanging, way to go Ms. Christie! ;)

Until Next Time,

Nicole Ciel