Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express may be one of the most difficult mysteries ever written. Her narrative of the detective Hercule Poirot on the Orient Express seems to have no solution at all. All twelve suspects have excellent alibis. All evidence seems to contradict itself. And it seems that even M. Poirot is baffled.
The mystery begins on the Orient Express as the train is traveling through Europe to Calais. One night, during a terrible snowstorm, the train is snowed in and cannot proceed. That morning, one man, a Mr. Ratchett, is found dead in his carriage, stabbed numerous times with a knife. Hercule Poirot sets to work on the case with his friend M. Bouc (the director of the train and representative of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons Lits) and Dr. Constantine (a medical doctor from a different coach). Not much is known about the case from the beginning, but there is one fact everyone is sure of: the murderer had no way to leave the train, ergo, he or she is one of the passengers.
There are twelve passengers on the Calais Coach of the Orient Express, each of which are viable suspects for the murder:
The mystery begins on the Orient Express as the train is traveling through Europe to Calais. One night, during a terrible snowstorm, the train is snowed in and cannot proceed. That morning, one man, a Mr. Ratchett, is found dead in his carriage, stabbed numerous times with a knife. Hercule Poirot sets to work on the case with his friend M. Bouc (the director of the train and representative of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons Lits) and Dr. Constantine (a medical doctor from a different coach). Not much is known about the case from the beginning, but there is one fact everyone is sure of: the murderer had no way to leave the train, ergo, he or she is one of the passengers.
There are twelve passengers on the Calais Coach of the Orient Express, each of which are viable suspects for the murder:
- Countess Elena Andrenyi: wife to Count Andrenyi
- Count Rudolph Andrenyi: a Hungarian diplomat, travelling to France
- Col. Arbuthnot: a British colonel, returning from India
- Mary Debenham: a British governess, returning to Great Britain from Baghdad
- Princess Natalia Dragomiroff: a Russian noblewoman
- Antonio Foscarelli: an Italian businessman
- Cyrus Hardman: an American typewriter ribbon salesman
- Caroline Hubbard: an American woman, returning home after visiting her daughter in Baghdad
- Hector MacQueen: the American secretary to Mr. Ratchett
- Edward Masterman: the British valet to Mr. Ratchett
- Greta Ohlsson: a Swedish missionary, travelling home for a vacation
- Hildegarde Schmidt: the German lady's-maid to Dragomiroff
Christie makes this case as difficult as possible, taking the reader for a thrilling ride through lies, plot twists, and stunning revelations. While Poirot gets closer and closer to finding out the identity of the murderer and the solution to the mystery, the reader gets more and more enthralled in the plot of the book. Every clue discovered brings M. Poirot, the funny little Belgian, closer and closer to the solution. Every mystery lover will delight himself in using his little grey cells along with Poirot as he discovers the solution to the murder on the Orient Express.
Grade: 8.5
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