Murder on the Orient Express

I recently just finished reading Agatha Christie's Murder on the Express. It was certainly one of the most exciting books I have read in a while, and I finished reading the entire novel over a long weekend. The main character of the novel is Christie's famed detective Hercule Poirot, who is the main character in many of Christie's murder mysteries. The novel was first published in 1934, and it seems to be set right around the same time as there are references to the recent war (World War I) and the Great Depression in America. After having just solved a crime for the French military in Syria, Poirot is on his return trip to England when he is confronted with a new murder mystery that occurs right underneath his nose. The novel is split into three separate parts. Part One sets up the plot and conflict of the novel by introducing the protagonist Poirot, providing some background information to more fully develop his character, establishing the setting of the train, and introducing the conflict involving the murder on the train. Part Two is set up completely differently as each chapter focuses on a different character that the detective interviews individually as he has agreed to investigate the murder. Part Three involves the solving of the mystery and the big reveal as detective Poirot puts the pieces together and resolves the conflict that has driven the entire story (Christie).

Murder on the Orient Express was the first book selected for our extra credit book club this year. I probably wouldn't have read the novel on my own had the book club not selected it, but I thought that it was an excellent book to kick off our book club with. I found the book to be very easy to get into as the action begins quickly and the mystery starts to unfold right before the detective. Without giving it all away, I will say I wasn't too particularly excited by the ending and the revealing of the murderer. I almost felt that it was too easy to end the story in this way, but at the same point, I can't really see it ending any other way due to the way in which Christie develops the victim into such a horrible and despicable human. In the end, I almost felt like the entire investigation was a waste of time, and this is really the main issue I had with the book overall. That being said, I totally got caught up in the mystery and action of the novel and enjoyed this dip into this detective, mystery genre, a genre that I don't typically seek out in the books I read on my own.