Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express (Poirot)

*NO SPOILERS*

I admit the first time I was truly intrigued by an Agatha Christie story was when I watched the movie trailer for Murder on the Orient Express. With its stellar star cast and the slow crawl camera work of the trailer, I knew I had to watch it.

What better way to immerse into a whodunit than first going with the flow of the story trying to guess who the culprit is; and once the murderer has been revealed, to revisit the story from a moviemaker’s point of view. And so I planned to read the book and only then watch the movie (which took me exactly a year to get to, so thank you Netflix for letting me stream the movie now).

For those who don’t know the plot, here’s an overview:

Murder on the Orient Express is a detective fiction as part of Christie’s Poirot series. Hercules Poirot is a famed detective travelling aboard the train with thirteen other passengers, forced to stop after being struck by a snowdrift. The next morning, a wealthy man is found murdered after being stabbed multiple times. Everyone on the train is a suspect.

Now, about the book.

The setting- lovely. The detective Hercules Poirot- just wow. The characters as they were being revealed seemed very intriguing at first, but then became a tad mundane and almost predictable in what they say and do. The storyline had a classic storyteller’s charm: not too complicated, with the plot going back and forth in time not more often than required. The reader was where they should be- in the moment, stuck in a train after running into a snowdrift. The story moves swiftly enough, where you find yourself deducing the clues along with ‘the world’s greatest detective’ Poirot.

I moved along and that continued through each chapter with a hunch that the character being written about here is the murderer. And then that hunch continued through the rest of the chapters for all thirteen suspects.

Was I able to predict the end? NO WAY! But sadly, it left me feeling a bit unfair about the entire premise. And there were many loose ends that just get discounted as guesswork.

Overall, I wish the characters had a little more depth and the biggest part of the storyline and the conclusions relied lesser on coincidences and guesswork.
Christie’s style of writing really made me relish the story- the cleanliness, the pace and the dialogues seemed refreshingly on point and that’s what kept me going.
I’d give the book 4 out of 5 stars before switching to the TV and catching the movie!

What did you think about the book or the movie? Post your comments and let me know. Meanwhile, you can buy or preview the book, below.