I finished reading Orient Express yesterday and it was my first book by AC. It was going really well until it wasn’t.
I was so disappointed that basically some information is not given to the reader and Poirot basically just makes assumptions based on his senses or intuition.
I was just wondering, are all books of the series like that? I would like to try and guess who’s the killer myself, which in this book didn’t seem possible. Keeping that in mind, is it worth trying reading other Poirot’s or Miss Marple books?
by WorthFig328
9 Comments
I thought it was the most obvious of Poirot’s novels. I mean, >!did you really believe that in that godforsaken train in Asia all the people related to a murder in the US just happened to gather by sheer coincidence!<?
The reason people tend to like the book, of course, is that >!AC plays with the conventions of the genre and the expectations of the reader, just like she does in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or in The A.B.C. Murders!<. Readers of Golden Age mysteries have been trained to expect that >!the murderer must be one of the suspects (not all of them!). But really, anyone investigating this case in real life, as soon as they discovered that all the suspects incredibly are personally connected to the murder, has to realize that it can’t be a coincidence that they are all there. And when the murder seems impossible because all the suspects have alibis supported by another of the suspects…!< well, isn’t it obvious?
Murder on the Orient Express, by the way, it’s not among my favorite Poirot books, even though it’s one of the most famous, because people love >!final twists like that!<. But, for me, the book is a bit plodding, with the the nitty-gritty of talking with suspect after suspect and checking times and alibis.
Regarding your question, I think some of Poirot’s are what they call “fair play”, in the sense that the reader is given all the clues needed to detect the murderer (along with red herrings, of course). Not all of them are like that, though. It’s never easy to solve the case, though, other than just picking a suspect randomly and being right by sheer luck. Christie is really good at misleading the reader (there’s a reason Robert Barnard titled his book about Agatha Christie “A talent to Deceive”).
It’s never been something that worries me, though; I’m not there to guess the murderer, but to enjoy the story and marvel at Poirot’s little grey cells. It does often happen to me that when the solution is presented something clicks and I think, ‘oh, so that’s why this and that happened’.
Anyway, if I’m ever falsely accused of murder, the detective I want investigating is not Sherlock Holmes or anyone else. I want Poirot.
Christie, *in general*, plays pretty fair and it’s usually possible, but not easy, to figure out what happened before it’s revealed. Orient Express is one of the handful of hers I re-read and the second time through I could see how I should have seen the solution even with the information I had.
I will say that it’s usually best to read novels of hers within a series in publish order because she will *occasionally* spoil an earlier novel in that series.
For example, there’s a later Poirot with an exchange something like: “But this thing has to be this way, unless *lays out circumstances that are roughly what the solution for Orient Express is”. Poirot: “Actually, there was this one case where that happened!”
I thought it was wonderful. Books aren’t made to be exercises in logic, at least most books of fiction. Christie exercised her art based upon the time she was living and what her readers were interested in buying.
To a 21st century reader, her Mysteries may seem sometimes misleading, lacking, uneven, or downright wrong. I guess I’m old/ancient enough to enjoy the time and spirit in which they were written. I’m sorry you were disappointed.
An author’s popularity can vary with the time or place in which it is read. Isaac Asimov is one who in recent years wasn’t very popular on this sub. That seems to have come around a little bit. I try to be tolerant of other people’s taste in art and literature. We are all of us different. It’s not surprising that we would have different opinions on so many works of creativity that exist in our day.
I like her books but this one of my least favourite ones. If you like mysteries I would recommend giving her another shot and trying some of her other popular books.
They are very hard to guess usually, but you can see how she did it if you re read them. It’s so long since I read Orient Express, that I can’t comment on that one. I guessed The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and it’s one of her best. The very first and the very last Poirots are set in the same house, so it’s fun to read them together: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), and Curtain (1975)
I love AC stories. They are all so layered & engrossing. However, the ending of the Orient Express is different from most of the other Christie books. I would definitely try another AC thriller.
There’s actually a concept that applies to mystery books called “fair play”. Which means you are given all the clues you need to solve the mystery. Some books are written this way and some are not.
IMO they are pretty much all like that. I love them to bits though!!! I just finally realized I’m really not expert at figuring out the murderer, sigh. My partner can always guess it, frustrating.
Out of curiosity I read a “fair play” Ellery Queen mystery a couple weeks ago (I’m in the middle of reading all of Agatha Christie). It was SO boring, so plodding. You learn every little detail Queen learns in “real time” and it has no flow, no emotion compared to AC. She edits the information to carry the story forward and it’s very effective for dramatic purposes.
Seriously, go read a Queen and see what you think about “fair play”. I couldn’t guess the killer even with fair play tho, ha!
That was my experience with Christie. I read one book of hers, thought, “who? That was dumb” and never read her again.