A staged murder!. Review on Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie

"It was five o'clock on a winter's morning in Syria."

And there it all started, Today I finished probably my second read of a English detective novel and that too which belong to a series (though I can't confirmed it, I've read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes' 'A Study in Scarlet' before, plus did read some books of SMP's Hindi books now), but this one belongs to another character named "Hercule Poirot", the imagination of Agatha Christie, a legendary detective story writer, also termed as 'Queen of Crime'. Born 15th Sept, 1890 in England, is said the third best widely published author, after 'Bible' and 'Shakespeare'. As per the author's note provided in the book I read, which is published in 2007 by Harper Collins, she has written around 80 crime novels, and short story collections, 19 plays, and 6 romantic novels under the name of Mary Westmacott. Her first novel was 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and 1st novel published by Harper Collins was 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' in 1926.

“In the restaurant-car all was in readiness.”

This was probably the 10th novel in Hercule Poirot series, and which she has written in Pera Palace Hotel of Istanbul, Turkey. It was first published in January 1934, the name I haven't mentioned yet, "Murder on the Orient Express". The book goes on for 347 pages divided over 3 parts, each parts divided into chapters totaling 32 chapters. Part 1 elaborates the fact and the case which happened, part 2 got all the evidences and part 3 contributes investigations. I bought this book from Infibeam for Rs.123. The book has a look of a pocket size story book like we have of any series, and which you can buy and keep displayed in your bookshelf alongwith other same series books. It has also been adapted as movies made in 1974, 2001 and 2010.

“’One should advance only a step at a time.’”

It tells the story of a mysterious murder which happens aboard a train named “Simplon Orient Express” – Hercule Poirot boards the train to go to London. He is coming after solving one case. He got accompanied by M.Bouc, the director of the hotel and travel logistics company, which operated the Orient express. He did not get berth, even at the time when the train was supposed to be empty. Though he got one 2nd class berth at Constantinople, and later on shifted to other birth which is just adjacent to some Mr.Ratchett, who got killed during one night in mysterious circumstances. Train after departing Vincovci during midnight comes to a standstill because of heavy snow blocking the tracks. And then after insisting, Hercule started investigation about how the crime has happened and who has done it. He interviewed all 12-13 person on the train to get their statement of night bout where were they when the murder happens and afterwards proposed two solutions to the crime, one of which is readily accepted.

“’There are two possible solutions of the crime. I shall put them both before you.’”

To know about the exact mystery and happenings, you have to read the book, since it’s a good and easy read. And I am sure you’ll like it. The English used here seems old styled, but it didn’t offer any difficulty in understanding. The chapters are small which made the book more readable, since you don’t have to wait for a chapter to end before putting the book away for next read. Agatha Christie has a very different style of storytelling – she approaches the crime in the simplest manner and slowly, like her main character is doing a lot of thinking. Hercule Poirot knows or can guess everything, but he didn’t share his thoughts with everybody else, he just builds the case in mind and rest it as further proceedings happens. The book also had a diagram of the train coach with listings of ‘which berth got which passengers’ to give the reader an idea about the crime scene. Agatha Christie proceed to the mystery step by step, first she describes the crime scene and the real-time happening of crime, then in 2nd part a separate chapter is provided containing the interviews of each passenger with Poirot, and in third part the investigation results comes out as per poirot’s thinking, where she mentioned the points which could be written by the detective to consider, so the book provides a good base for any aspiring detective, like how you should plan and she set the style of her detective about how Poirot thinks and proceeded, that was one good thing of the book. The mystery is good, it’s something about a staged mystery, since the murder is staged or planned beforehand, and the revealations come surprisingly. Though to me it look far too stretched, such a cool planning and staging a murder is a bit too risky and needs too much effort for just killing one man, it can be done easily, but then it’s a book which is written with the sole purpose of enlightening the readers with some mysterious crime detective stories. I liked the end of the book when Poirot proposes two solutions to the murder, and he already knows which solution everybody will accept. Book is a good read for mystery lovers, though I doubt that this one will count as their best collection in mystery stories.

“’I see,’, he said, ‘that I shall have to give my second solution. But do not abandon this one too abruptly. You may agree with it later.’

I usually don’t read detective novels, though am a fan of Detective serials (except CID) like Karamchand Jasoos, Byomkesh Bakshi or Tehkikaat. But this was a change for me, and why did I got attracted to this book, since it has train in its name, if you know, I am very fond of travelling that too in train and in Sleeper class, I liked to enjoy a train journey, so I thought to give it a try, though the novel doesn’t have much about the journey but yes it satisfied me, and hence I completed this one in 7 days. Do own and read it, if you haven’t. My take 4/5.

“’Then’, said Poirot, ‘having placed my solution before you, I have the honour to retire from the case…’”

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki :)