Murder on the Orient Express

It’s so much fun listening to David Suchet read the Poirot books

‘’Some crimes God does not forgive!’’

Last week, I watched (for the gazillionth time…) ITV’s 2010 production of ‘’Murder on the Orient Express’’ with the inimitable David Suchet in the role of our beloved Hercule Poirot and it prompted certain thoughts in my mind. Why is this considered one of Christie’s finest creations? Many say that, arguably, it is her best work and this view I do share.

I don’t think any of us need a synopsis. To say the story is well-known would be an understatement. Even people who haven’t read the book know of the outstanding outcome and the resolution of, possibly, the most controversial murder (but is it a ‘’crime’’?) in Christie’s marvellous works. So what is it that makes show more this novel by the Lady of Crime so iconic and a point of reference?

Is is the exceptional cast of characters, each one battling with the demons of the past? Is it the wintry atmosphere? The intense feeling of claustrophobia, of being trapped in a train, within a snowstorm, in a foreign country with a dead body lying in a compartment? Or is it the absolute, ultimate questioning of the moral values we have come to adopt? What is right and wrong? When injustice isn’t punished, to what extent can we bend the human limits? God and Law can’t always protect us...Here, Hercule discovers that his little grey cells are only a small part of the solution. It is his heart that has to do the rest.

This is a jewel not only of Crime Fiction, but of Literature in general, regardless of the genre. A work that doesn’t ask the reader to think of the ‘’who has done it’’ question, but to contemplate on the ‘’what would you have done’’ issue. And as for me, I fully agree with Greta Ohlsson. Some crimes God doesn’t forgive…. show less

What has delighted me so much in this audio book has been Suchet's superb characterisation of each person. I have particularly enjoyed Mrs Hubbard - the depiction has had me laughing out loud as I'm driving. It contrasts so beautifully with Poirot's calm voice of reason, and Monsieur Bouc's willingness to jump to conclusions. I must admit, I really already knew how this novel turned out, so the element of surprise that a new reader gets from this novel is not there for me. But that has given me a chance to appreciate how carefully Christie constructed the plot, how meticulously she laid the red herrings across the path, and just how well it shows Hercule Poirot's little grey cells in action.

It also shows how Agatha Christie uses current show more events in the setting of her novels: MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was clearly based on the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in the previous year, and Christie's own experience when the Orient Express train she was on was stuck for twenty-four hours.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was Agatha Christie's 14th novel, the 8th Hercule Poirot. Poirot's usual foil, Captain Arthur Hastings, is missing from this novel. Poirot is on his way back to London from an assignment in Syria, and so he bounces his ideas off two others: Monsieur Bouc, the director of Wagon-Lits, an old friend of Poirot's, who employs him to discover who has killed Mr Rachette; and a Greek Doctor Dr. Stavros Constantine.

There must have been considerable outcry, one would think, about the final solution to the crime. Poirot comes up with two solutions, but the one he finally goes with reveals great humanity. show less

I suppose I must've been around 10 at the time when I started digging into my dad's collection of horror stories and thrillers, most of which were old classic tales (mostly compilations of horror short stories, including Poe and the like and detectives like Simenon or Christie), supplemented by my own R.L. Stine era horror. We also watched a lot of detective series on TV: A Touch of Frost, Silent Witness and my favourite: Poirot!

Now I don't remember for sure if I started reading Christie because I enjoyed the TV series or if the two just coincided; the series has been running since the late 80s and is now close to having covered every Poirot story ever written. Unfortunately the latest installments seem to have turned Poirot into a show more grumpy, religious old man rather than the clever and quirky Poirot I grew up loving. It's still great to watch though, David Suchet's Poirot is perfect. In fact, whenever I see a different actor portraying him, it makes me physically sick.

Anyway, I loved the series, I loved Christie, or more specifically I loved Poirot, because I scanned the back covers of all the Christie omnibi to see which stories or novels included Poirot, because I sure as hell wasn't going to waste my precious time on Miss Marple!

Obviously, seeing as I was 10 (this is a rough estimate, I always have a lot of trouble sticking an age on life events, so I might have been 8, or 12 or something), I read all these stories in Dutch translation, which works quite well for old horror stories and detectives and either way my English proficiency wasn't quite up to scratch yet.

A while ago, I decided to revisit my old love and again searched through my dad's dusty long-time-no-read collection of books, I think it was induced by seeing half of a Poirot episode on TV or by listening to the old Poirot theme.

Please enjoy the smooth jazzy sounds of the exquisite Poirot theme song and savour the sight of David Suchet's big, bald, smiley head kaleidoscopically embracing your screen. I get a big nostalgia orgasm every time.


Soon enough, I found Moord in de Oriënt-express, which I remembered liking a lot. I started reading it, but quickly realised I couldn't deal with Poirot speaking Dutch. I tried to move past it, but I could only see David Suchet's face in my head, uttering Dutch lines, and it was just wrong, so wrong. So I put it away and ordered a used copy in English online. I don't think my dad would be too pleased if he found out I'm ordering books he already has. Tssk.

I'm happy to say, I still love Poirot. Not that he is all that loveable, really. He's an arrogant, elitist know-it-all, with a slightly worrying psychopathic streak. Sure, he doesn't kill anyone, but this guy adores murder and death. If some poor soul got brutally stabbed or viciously beaten to death everywhere Hercule went, he'd be a happy camper. One scene in particular made me laugh:

At one point in the beginning of the novel, when no one has been killed yet (spoilers! someone totally dies!), Poirot is sitting in the dining wagon with his friend, having a nice meal. His friend, Mr. Bouc, I believe, is mentioning to Poirot how nice it is that so many people of different nationalities and class are gathered here together, enjoying their voyage, only to go their separate ways again. Poirot then ventures an alternative turn of events, where all this lovey-dovey harmony is struck down SHOULD someone have a little accident, or you know, get brutally murdered.

What a buzzkill, that Hercule. A little creepy too. There you are eating a nice meal and celebrating the joys of life when your moustached friend starts getting all morbid. Now what Mr. Bouc should have said was probably something like: "Huh? What! Murdered? What are you on about? We're having a nice meal here and you can't shut up about lethal accidents and murder. What the fuck is wrong with you, dude?"

Sure enough, though, Poirot was right, one of those people, did get murdered. Funny how that works. Sometimes I think that Poirot sets up every murder he solves, just for the hell of it. It's awfully suspicious how he's always around murders and when he just plainly starts predicting them out of the blue, I wouldn't feel safe anymore.

There's some flaws in this, sure. Having been written in the 30s, it uses a lot of discriminating stereotypes when it comes to European ethnicities. Italians are passionate people, they stab. English people are basically robots, they'd never stab. Things like that, but in the end all these "facts" are not relevant to the solution, so to me it's only interesting to read a book in the 30s mindset. Besides, I'm Belgian, I come off fucking great. You won't hear me complaining.

Poirot's deductions and revelations are sometimes on the verge of psychic, which, I suppose, somewhat thwarts the reader in his quest to the solution. I did figure out the solution before I finished, but I'm guessing I didn't really solve it but just remembered the unravelling from when I read it so many years ago. I can't imagine that I actually figured it out. Quite unlikely, because, in my vision, it's not really a bad thing that you can't figure out the full array of things, because Poirot is supposed to outsmart everyone. He's supposed to know things you don't know, and draw conclusions you never would. If I weren't hopelessly outsmarted by Hercule Poirot, what kind of life would this be? Who would I look up to? Poirot is smarter than you and that's just how it should be, and I'm glad.

Finally, I'd like to say that I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have enjoyed this nearly as much as if it weren't for David Suchet. Even when Poirot is being a pompous dick, Suchet's comforting face appears in my head and everything he does turns from annoying to eccentrically charming and all is right with the world.

Je vous remercie, monsieur Suchet, mon ami. May your little grey cells continue to rage in full force. show less

Those around him jump to improbable and often contradictory conclusions, while Hercule Poirot calmly and rationally gathers every fact, lie, and piece of seemingly minor evidence to come to a brilliant and correct conclusion -- all within a relatively small number of pages. Agatha Christie did not waste a word! As a person who has often thought "cut this book down by 40% and it would have been pretty good," I deeply appreciate her crisp conciseness.

While reading this I tried to remember which of the rest of the Poirot series I've read, and I think [b:The Mysterious Affair at Styles|16343|The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot #1)|Agatha show more Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386922393l/16343._SY75_.jpg|3366260] may have been the only one. I also think I didn't love it (it's so hard to remember every book I've ever read) and so I abandoned M Poirot at the gate. I'm glad I have revisited him.

In related news I still can't get my mind around a train being stopped in its tracks (ha) by a snowdrift and anyone who cares to explain it to me is welcome. show less

‘’Some crimes God does not forgive!’’

Last week, I watched (for the gazillionth time…) ITV’s 2010 production of ‘’Murder on the Orient Express’’ with the inimitable David Suchet in the role of our beloved Hercule Poirot and it prompted certain thoughts in my mind. Why is this considered one of Christie’s finest creations? Many say that, arguably, it is her best work and this view I do share.

I don’t think any of us need a synopsis. To say the story is well-known would be an understatement. Even people who haven’t read the book know of the outstanding outcome and the resolution of, possibly, the most controversial murder (but is it a ‘’crime’’?) in Christie’s marvellous works. So what is it that makes show more this novel by the Lady of Crime so iconic and a point of reference?

Is is the exceptional cast of characters, each one battling with the demons of the past? Is it the wintry atmosphere? The intense feeling of claustrophobia, of being trapped in a train, within a snowstorm, in a foreign country with a dead body lying in a compartment? Or is it the absolute, ultimate questioning of the moral values we have come to adopt? What is right and wrong? When injustice isn’t punished, to what extent can we bend the human limits? God and Law can’t always protect us...Here, Hercule discovers that his little grey cells are only a small part of the solution. It is his heart that has to do the rest.

This is a jewel not only of Crime Fiction, but of Literature in general, regardless of the genre. A work that doesn’t ask the reader to think of the ‘’who has done it’’ question, but to contemplate on the ‘’what would you have done’’ issue. And as for me, I fully agree with Greta Ohlsson. Some crimes God doesn’t forgive….

My reviews can be found in: https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com show less

I'd never read 'Murder On The Orient Express' or seen any of the movies so all I knew about it was that there was a murder on the Orient Express with Poirot conveniently aboard to investigate it and that it's a favourite book for many Agatha Christie fans.

I had a great time reading the book, going in blind. So, in case you haven't read it either, I'm not going to share any plot points here. I'm just going to talk about what made the books such fun.

What I liked most about this book was how playful it was. The humour starts from the first scene with Poirot engaged in an uncomfortable conversation about the weather with the French officer assigned to see him off on the train. It's a cinematic opening to the novel that dwells not on any show more sense of foreboding, or even on how exciting long-distance train travel across two continents could be but rather on the embarrassment caused to two men with nothing in common but the need to be polite to one another.

This sense of playfulness continues with small comedy of manners pieces throughout the book but the most playful aspect of the book is the puzzle itself.

The plot had the potential to be deeply boring. Someone gets killed. It seems likely that only people on a certain carriage on the train would have had the opportunity to commit the murder. You interview all the people one at a time in the dining car until you find out who did it. How static and tedious would that have been?

Christie turns it into something lively by having a set of characters, passengers and crew, of different nationalities, social class, trustworthiness and confidence and then adding a plot where every new piece of information seems to eliminate one or more of the suspects until, apart from the fact that there is a dead body, it would seem to have been impossible for the murder to have been committed. I found myself imagining Christie grinning as she twisted the plot one more time, challenging the reader to work it out.

The Orient Express, or at least the concept of the privilege and luxury and the unashamed 'we're here for the rich and titled' attitude, became a character in the book. The train, pushing through the winter snow on the mountains, became more like a ship far from shore.

Then there was the ending. It was perfect. I was grinning with childish delight when the solution to the puzzle was revealed. It was satisfying not just as an answer to a puzzle but as a solution I could cheer for.

I even liked Poirot in this book. Perhaps it was the absence of Hastings or the presence of so many larger-than-life characters, or that the people around him knew his reputation, but he seemed to do less grandstanding and made less reference to his 'method'. He just got on with the job and showed his skill for interviewing people and for analysing the information he gained from them. Not that any of that helped me solve the puzzle but it was fun to watch.

My enjoyment of the book was enhanced by listening to the audiobook version narrated by Dan Stevens. There are a couple of other audible versions around, one by Suchet and one by Branagh but I wanted a version that wasn't just a reprise of 'when I played Poirot'. After all, Poirot is rarely the most interesting character in the book. He works best as a mildly eccentric Dues ex Machina obsessed with the voluptuous richness of his moustaches. Dan Stevens did an excellent job of bringing the large and diverse cast of characters alive. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.


https://soundcloud.com/harpercollinspublishers/murder-on-the-orient-express-1 show less