| Product: |
Murder On the Orient Express - Agatha Christie |
| Date: |
19/02/06 (1877 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Clever plot, incredible denouement
Disadvantages: Weak characterisation
Agatha Christie, that great writer of detective novels, was enjoying huge success during the 1930s. Her books were both incredibly popular and critically acclaimed, and the author was riding on the crest of a wave, writing some of the best work of her career, including the first Miss Marple stories, The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) and The Thirteen Problems (1932). After finishing a collection of short stories about the supernatural, titled The Hound of Death (1933), Christie turned her attentions towards her next book.
Christie was a frequent traveller at the time, journeying around Europe with her husband who was an archaeologist. She had seen the famous European sleeper train, the Orient Express, in France, Spain and Italy, and every time had wanted to climb inside, but had never travelled on board. It also had a certain romantic appeal, and Christie decided to make it the setting for her next novel.
THE PLOT
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The time: the mid-1930s. The place: Eastern Europe. After clearing up a military scandal in Aleppo, Syria, Hercule Poirot boards the Taurus Express to travel to Stamboul. While on board he encounters a young Englishwoman and a military type gentleman whose curious remarks and secretive meetings puzzle Poirot.
After arrival at Stamboul and crossing the Bosphorus, Poirot receives a telegram summoning him back to London immediately. Thanks to his old friend Monsieur Bouc, a director of a train company, Poirot is able to get a last minute berth on the Simplon Orient Express to Calais. His two fellow passengers from Aleppo are amongst the many travellers on board.
And then, at midnight, the train comes to a halt after encountering a snowdrift blocking the line. All seems peaceful - until the next morning, when Poirot rises to discover that one of the passengers has been brutally murdered, stabbed a dozen times over.... his door locked from the inside.
Determined to discover the truth, the Belgian detective encounters passengers who are not all they seem to be... Can it be that one of them is a cold-blooded killer?
THE REVIEW
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Murder on the Orient Express (also known as Murder on the Calais Coach) was originally published in 1934. It was the 19th published book by Agatha Christie and the ninth to feature Hercule Poirot.
Orient Express is arguably Christie's most famous story, and probably the first book that leaps to our minds whenever Christie's name is mentioned. Read by many people around the world, and dramatised into a major Hollywood film, it is certainly thought of as one of the greatest whodunits.
But does it live up to its classic status?
I had read many Christie books by the time I reached this novel. For example, Peril at End House (1932) and The ABC Murders (1935), both published around the same time, were books I had enjoyed immensely. I was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy it as much as her previous works. Why? Read on!
Christie has divided the book into three parts: Part I - The Facts, Part II - The Evidence, Part III - Hercule Poirot Sits Back and Thinks. Each Part is divided into about ten smaller chapters. In Part II, each chapter contains an interview with each suspect. Christie would often use different ways of structuring her novels and this is one of her rarer methods.
There are thirteen suspects aboard the main carriage: Mrs Hubbard, a chatty middle-aged American lady; the gruff Colonel Arbuthnot; Ratchett's secretary, MacQueen; his valet, Masterman; a friendly Swedish missionary, Greta Ohlsson; the Hungarian Count Andrenyi and his wife; a flamboyant American, Mr Hardman; Foscarelli, a cheery Italian; a young English governess, Mary Debenham; a lady's maid, Miss Schmidt; the elderly Princess Dragomiroff; and the Wagon Lit conductor, Pierre Michel.
The main problem I had with this story is that there were too many characters. Thirteen suspects is too many! For the reader to accept a person as a genuine suspect, each one needs to be fleshed out so as to make them more real and believable, and with only 230 pages to play with, it just doesn't work well enough. In Part II, while each suspect gets their own chapter, some of them hardly feature in the rest of the book, and there's a sense of unreality about it all. For example, the valet, Masterman, is interviewed for five pages and then disappears until the last 15 pages of the book! How can the reader take him seriously as a suspect? Ideally there should be no more than seven or eight suspects, which is the usual number in this author's works.
Each suspect should then feature throughout the story, prominently enough so that they make an impression on the reader. The best example of this is Cards on the Table (1936) where there are four suspects only, and each one is written in sufficient depth to be a potential killer.
Although this is a huge flaw and reduced my enjoyment of the book, it is the only weakness on display. Yes, the characters aren't real enough, but the plot is strong enough to hold the reader's interest.
Once again, Christie uses the plot device of isolating the characters in one particular setting. In my last review (Death on the Nile), the suspects were confined to a river steamboat on the Nile. In this situation, the action is confined to two carriages of a train, the most claustrophobic setting Christie has ever created. In fact, Part II is set entirely within the restaurant car, to hold the interviews. By staying in one room for such a long time, the book could quickly become monotonous reading, but Christie avoids this trap, by concentrating our attention on the crime itself and the various ways it could have been committed. Her writing style helps, as there is little descriptive text and lots of exposition.
Another useful Christie device is a diagram of the murder scene, and it is especially handy here. A map of the carriage is provided. This allows us to: a) see which compartment each passenger was in; and b) draw conclusions as to the likeliest suspects (amusingly, Poirot himself is the passenger closest to the victim's compartment).
Of course, the main talking point about this book is the denouement and how clever it is. This is a characteristic of all good Christie novels, the ability to stun the reader with a completely unexpected solution, but this one is arguably the best she ever wrote (although The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) comes close). Obviously I won't reveal any details, but suffice to say Poirot gathers all the suspects into the restaurant car and propounds his solution in detail (in fact, two solutions - you'll have to read the book to understand what I mean) and it's jaw dropping! So much so, that it goes some way to making up for the character deficiencies I detailed earlier.
Oddly, it is suggested that Poirot is comfortable with someone taking the law into their own hands if there is no legal way of bringing a criminal to justice. This is out of character for a man who has always made it clear that murder is murder, and he won't let you get away with it, whatever the reason for committing the crime! It's certainly something different, after so many books where he has the police on hand to arrest the murderer after Poirot has denounced him!
This story actually takes place directly after Murder in Mesoptamia (1936), in which Poirot solved a double murder at an excavation site in Syria. The latter book was published two years later, which shows that Christie's books were not set in chronological order.
EDITIONS
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As this is one of her more popular books, you will find many editions available to purchase on Amazon. The edition displayed above is no longer in print. The latest UK edition to be published is the 'signatory' edition, which can be purchased for £5.59 (ISBN 0007119313, Harper Collins, 320 pages).
I own an earlier edition published in the 90s (£4.99, ISBN 0006170064, Harper Collins). At 240 pages, this book is much slimmer than the signatory edition, which is probably twice the width. It is no longer available first hand, although there are plenty of copies to be found in Amazon Marketplace! Amazon UK is even selling a Spanish language version of the book.
SCREEN ADAPTATIONS
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The best, and perhaps most famous, adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express is the cinematic film directed by Sidney Lumet from 1974. It garnered six Oscar nominations. Albert Finney played Hercule Poirot in a superb performance (he's also unrecognisable thanks to a lot of makeup). The film also starred John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Vanessa Redgrave, and in an Oscar winning performance, Ingrid Bergman (she won for Best Supporting Actress). This was reportedly the only film adaptation of Christie's work that she was satisfied with.
The film is available on DVD for £15.99 (with only one extra, the trailer). The video is deleted. Also worth mentioning is Richard Rodney Bennett's beautiful music score, which is available on CD (£8.99). His Orient Express theme as the train pulls out of the station is perhaps one of the most memorable themes in the history of cinema.
David Suchet has yet to film this novel for the ongoing ITV Poirot series. However, there was a US TV movie made a few years ago, updating the novel to a contemporary setting and starring Alfred Molina as Hercule Poirot (You may not know the name but you'll know the face; he played Doctor Octopus in Spiderman II, amongst other roles). Molina is fine, but it's a poor adaptation and it didn't help giving Poirot a love interest!
AUDIOBOOKS
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There are various audio adaptations of Murder on the Orient Express. If you are interested in a full dramatisation, Radio 4's play on CD is the best option (£12.99, ISBN 0563478349). This is part of a series of BBC plays with a full cast. John Moffatt plays Hercule Poirot. For the old fashioned amongst us, you can buy a cassette version (£10.99, ISBN 0563406909).
Murder on the Orient Express is also available as a CD audiobook, narrated by David Suchet. You can buy a complete and unabridged version (£11.21, ISBN 0007202075). The audio cassette release is unavailable. I warn you though, it's a long haul! For those who prefer an abridged version, this is also available, but only on cassette. Surprisingly, it's more expensive than the unabridged reading on CD (£13.99, ISBN 0007135750). You can also buy an abridged narration by Andrew Sachs, on CD (£7.25, ISBN 1405032731) and audio cassette (£7.19, ISBN 0333908473).
To sum up, I enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express, but to a lesser degree than some of Agatha Christie’s other novels. Many people have seen the film and not read the book, in which case I couldn't recommend it. However, if you have heard of the book and are curious to see what all the fuss is about, then it's certainly worth a read.
Summary: Agatha Christie's most famous whodunit with a stunning denouement
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