Reviews - Murder on the Orient Express

16.9k reviews for:

Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie

4.1 AVERAGE

jayyb's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

konniesbb's review against another edition

3.0

mysterious

Not my favourite Poirot by a long shot but Agatha Christie's books are always an enjoyable reading experience.

kp_741's review against another edition

2.0

I don’t know about this one. It was ok. Classic fantasy setting of a bunch of people from all over set in an exotic, yet closed off space where everyone is aristocratic and a habitual smoker, and yet somehow all speak the same language, which is also not the native language of the setting. Poirot has all of the arrogance of Holmes, but none of the fallibility to keep him grounded and, in my case at least, liked. It was tedious to listen to him talk down to his expert assistants the whole time. They were constantly in the way of Poirot, guiding him down wrong paths rather than how Watson actually contributes to Holmes’s process and is therefore indispensable.

And the end you can see about a mile away. The princess is implicated early, so by the fact that there’s a lot of book left, she’s innocent. The Cassetti Murder is brought up, so that’s the motive. As soon as the second character is tied to that murder, that means everyone else is guilty too because why would an entire cast of characters be a bunch of red herrings? At least I stuck around to get the particulars and the street justice ending is a very fitting backdrop for modern times. That Poirot let it go was at least a surprise. Holmes he is not, and I think he’s not a powerful enough character to redefine the genre, which is probably why only people who read a lot know who this guy is.