"Murder On the Orient-Express" by Agatha Christie| Book Review
Genre: Crime Fiction
Page Count: 288
First Published: January 1, 1934
I'm only gonna tell this once, I was wrong! “Murder on the Orient Express,” which was published in 1934, and turned into a Sidney Lumet film forty years later, retains a certain cachet as one of Christie’s most ingenious works. I was alarmed to realize, upon grinding through it once again, that ingenuity is all it has. The craziest thing is that at one point, when I concluded things were beginning to look too witless and unrealistic, everything turned around and I was presented with another solution, I was careless to think for sure that I knew who the culprit was and I felt a little bit annoyed because I thought the author made it way too obvious but I was wrong and I'm glad I was wrong! Now looking back at it I think that’s what makes this novel a first-rate. The characters are perfunctory; their actions are described in galumphing style; barring no one of their own personalities. The ethnic stereotyping are occasionally racist and even sexist for instance; one character guesses that a woman killed Mr. Ratchett because only a woman could become so enraged and overcome by emotion that she would haphazardly stab a man 12 times or when an Italian or someone of Latin descent committed the crime, because Latin people are prone to sudden fits of rage and so forth... but that's what makes it so tip-top! And last but not least the Queen of Crime, as she is worshipfully known, just set the most claustrophobic atmosphere that I could think of, a train, during a snowstorm...
If you haven't read it, what are you doing living on this hearth first of all? And second of all, this is a must read! I've already picked my second book from Agatha Christie, "Hercule Poirot's Christmas" just right to set me on the Christmas Spirit; so you know, get on it!
RATING:
★★★★★