Murder on the Orient Express (Poirot)
Christie's most celebrated whodunit begins with a blizzard and ends with one of fiction's most startling revelations. A snowdrift brings the Orient Express to a grinding halt somewhere in the dead of night, leaving its passengers stranded in the cold. The train is unusually well-occupied for the season, which strikes an odd note from the outset. By morning, the headcount is down by one. An American businessman has been found stabbed repeatedly in his locked compartment, with no apparent way for anyone to have entered or left. It's the kind of crime scene that defies easy explanation. Hercule Poirot, Christie's meticulous Belgian detective, happens to be on board, and with a killer still loose among the passengers, waiting is not an option. What follows is a tightly wound investigation conducted entirely within the confines of a stationary train, where every fellow traveller is a suspect and every alibi deserves scrutiny. Christie constructs the puzzle with quiet confidence, feeding the reader just enough to feel clever, then pulling the rug out completely. Short, sharp chapters keep the pace brisk, while the closed-world setting creates a genuine sense of unease. If you've never read it, you're in for a treat. If you have, it rewards revisiting.
- Author: Agatha Christie
- Publisher: Harper Collins
- Genre: Science Fiction
- ISBN: 978-0007527502
- Pages: 288 pages