Murder on the Orient Express #

Agatha Christie #

November 27, 2021

5/5

The interesting thing about my reading schedule lately has been that I have been alternating between classic novels and Christie novels. I am a fairly slow reader so it’s always fun going from reading something like Don Quixote (which I greatly enjoyed but took me a good bit of months to read) to Christie’s “And Then There were None”, which I read in about two days and could not put down.

I effectively had the same experience here, where before this, I was reading “A Tale of Two Cities”, by Charles Dickens, and then took a break from classic lit with some Christie. Again, this novel was spectacular; it was a novel I could not put down. The story is fascinating and I absolutely adore the setting of the plot (makes me wish trains were more ubiquitous in the USA). It is always a joy to read Christie and especially her stories with Poirot, and this is no exception.

One thing I would mention that is a bit out of the ordinary from the detective fiction I’ve read is the way this novel is set up. It isn’t necessarily set up in the same vein as other detective fiction, but is rather broken down into a few sections: the case itself, meeting the passengers/dealing with evidence, and the ending. I’ve seen both the film adaptations of this novel, so actually reading it in this format (and with this set up) was rather interesting, though it does make sense from a deductive standpoint, I reckon.

Overall, I would highly recommend this novel as I got great enjoyment out of it, but I do understand that the set up/progression of the novel could be a bit off putting to some.