Novel Review: Murder on the Orient Express

Review of “Murder on the Orient Express” by Agatha Christie

Title                 : Murder on the Orient Express

Author             : Agatha Christie

Publisher         : Collins Crime Club

Pages               : 211

            Murder on The Orient Express is not a thriller story even though the title says so. This novel was written by Agatha Christie that is known as the most popular mystery writer in the world with 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections. The main character of this book, Hercule Poirot is often exist in almost all of Christie’s works.

            This story is about a former police officer, Hercule Poirot , that later works as an independent detective. He wants to take a break from handling many cases. He goes to Istanbul in Taurus Express where he meets Mary Debenham and Colonel Arbuthnot. In Istanbul, he meets his old friend, M. Bouc, which works as the head of Wagon Lit. Bouc arranges place for Poirot in the Orient Express so that he can go to London as soon as possible. In the train, he meets some passengers, Mrs. Hubbard, Ratchett, and Hector McQueen, Mary Debenham, and Colonel Arbuthnot.

            His journey in the Orient Express is not like what he has expected before. Ratchett approaches Poirot asking him to work for Ratchett because Ratchett has been receiving threatening letters and someone is trying to kill him. Poirot refuses and ignores Ratchett.

            The next morning, the train is stuck in snow. M. Bouc informs the passengers to stay inside the train. Then, he goes to Poirot telling that Ratchett is murdered. Poirot finds Ratchett’s death body in the compartment next to him with twelve stab wounds. Ratchett is murdered and the murderer is still on the train. Poirot decides to find who the murderer is. He examines the compartment and finds many evidences that make him confused. Twelve of thirteen passengers could be a suspect of this case. The important evidence is a piece of paper with the name “Armstrong” on it. It reminds him with a case a few years back about a three years old girl named Daisy Armstrong which is kidnapped and killed even though the wealthy family had paid the ransom. It is known later that the one who has kidnapped Daisy is Ratchett, known as Casetti before. The twelve passengers, led by Mrs. Hubbard─Linda Arden, Daisy’s grandmother─plan to avenge the murder of Daisy Armstrong. The others were connected with the Armstrong’s case. They manage to get into the same train with Ratchett and kill him by stabbing his body with a knife­─one person one stab­.

            Knowing the reason of this murder case, Poirot gives solutions. First, the murderer is a stranger that entered the train and killed Ratchett. Second, all of the passengers are involved in the case. Mrs. Hubbard agree with the first solution but Poirot and M. Bouc tell the police the first solution is correct in order to protect the family.

            From this story, we can know that the main theme of the novel is Justice. The Armstrong family think that Ratchett deserves to be killed because he has destroyed many people’s life when Daisy was dead. Daisy’s mother was dead along with the baby inside her womb. Daisy’s father committed suicide by shooting himself. All people around Daisy were hurt and couldn’t live like they used to. The murder is probably not considered as a crime.

            The setting of this book is mostly on the train. However, the author still manages to make the story interesting by focusing on the characters.

            In my opinion, Christie wants to criticize the law and its justice in the U.S. By combining two cases in one book, she highlights the different points of view towards the cases. The murder of Daisy Armstrong is clearly unfair for people around her and they only want to take revenge to the murderer.

            It is undoubted that the story has a perfect plot twist considering the author was the best in writing detective and mystery book. Agatha Christie’s works had been sold more than one billion copies in English and one more billion in 45 languages (2003).

            I should admit that this is the best detective novel I’ve ever read and I look forward to read other Christie’s works. I highly recommend this book for those who like detective story and have high imagination because Christie’s novels make the reader think hard and it feels like you are involved in the story. However, there’s also one weakness of this book. For you who don’t know French, you would probably feel confused during the reading because there are many French phrases in the book which are hard to understand for beginners. That wouldn’t be a big problem if you are really interested in reading.  In brief, this book is worth to read and it will sharpen your detective skill.