“It was 5 o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria.”

From Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.

Anyone that meets Hercule Poirot quickly learns that he is an odd little man with a large mustache and an even bigger skill for solving mysteries (and crimes).  While returning to England after finishing a case in Syria, Poirot finds himself on a train with a small group of very diverse passengers.  All is fairly normal on the trip, until one of the passengers is murdered and a terrible snowstorm has trapped the train (and the murderer) in the middle of a frozen nowhere.  Not one to let murder go unpunished, or one to trust those that are much less qualified in detective work than himself to handle the case, Poirot turns the train into his crime scene and his fellow passengers into both his witnesses and suspects.  There is a wide array of passengers on board the train, but none are removed from Poirot’s list of suspects.  The other passengers all claim innocence and seem to have no information to offer to the case, but Poirot’s skill as a brilliant detective soon shine through and he is able to conduct his search for the killer.

Christie’s skill as a masterful writer of mysteries shines through from the opening lines; Poirot’s observations and thoughts are easily translated into a story that is easy to follow.  The characters are very unique, but also easy to keep track of mentally while reading; it is also fairly easy to keep track of the details of the case because each witness is given special one-on-one attention.  The dialog is fairly straightforward, although the one major issue to some readers will be the French words/sentences/phrases scattered throughout the book; there is no explanation in English to what was said in the other language.  However, this should not deter readers, because Murder on the Orient Express is a captivating read that is worth every minute of reading!