Somewhere past Vinkovci station, a snowdrift stops the famous Orient Express train in its tracks. By morning, an American businessman lies dead in his compartment. The door is locked, and he has been stabbed a dozen times. That is the setup of Murder on the Orient Express, the eighth Hercule Poirot novel by Agatha Christie. Collins Crime Club published it in London on 1 January 1934. In America it first appeared as Murder in the Calais Coach.
What Is the Murder on the Orient Express Book About?
Poirot is on his way home to London after a case in Syria, travelling in the Istanbul–Calais coach. A rich American, Samuel Ratchett, offers Poirot money to protect him from threats. Poirot turns him down flat.
Then the train is stuck in the snow between Vinkovci and Brod, in what is now north-eastern Croatia. The murder is discovered in the morning. No one could have left or boarded the train, so Ratchett’s murder must be the work of one of his fellow passengers. Poirot’s friend M. Bouc, a director of the railway company, asks him to take the case. With the Greek doctor Constantine to help, the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen strangers.
Soon the victim’s past comes to light. It ties him to the kidnapping and killing of a three-year-old girl, Daisy Armstrong. Christie based that crime on the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s son.
The Passengers: Main Characters in Murder on the Orient Express
The coach carries a cross-section of 1930s Europe and America. Poirot has to question every one of them:
- Hector MacQueen, Ratchett’s American secretary, and Edward Masterman, his English valet
- Mrs. Caroline Hubbard, a talkative American widow
- Mary Debenham, an English governess, and Colonel Arbuthnot, a British officer back from India
- Princess Dragomiroff, an elderly Russian aristocrat, and her German maid, Hildegarde Schmidt
- The Count and Countess Andrenyi, a Hungarian diplomat and his wife
- Greta Ohlsson, a Swedish missionary
- Antonio Foscarelli, an Italian-American car salesman, and Cyrus Hardman, an American who is more than he seems
- Pierre Michel, the French conductor of the sleeping car
Our Review: A Closed Circle on a Train Going Nowhere
The snowbound train is the perfect closed setting. Nobody can leave, the police cannot arrive, and everyone had the chance. Christie uses that trap with great economy. The murder happens off the page, and there is no gore. What stays with you is the puzzle and the people.
When the book came out, the Times Literary Supplement praised Poirot’s little grey cells for solving the seemingly insoluble once more. The clues are fair. Everything Poirot uses is on the page, and on a second reading you see how openly Christie laid it out. The ending is one of the most famous in crime fiction, and it still works even if you have heard rumors about it. Avoid spoilers if you can.
Two weak spots. The long middle section is a string of interviews, one passenger after another, and it can feel repetitive. And the solution asks a lot of your belief. The New York Times reviewer in 1934 thought the plot came close to the impossible. Raymond Chandler later criticised it for the same reason. We think the ending earns its place anyway, because the book is really about what justice means.
Is It a Difficult Book to Read?
No. It is a short novel: the first edition ran to 256 pages, and most modern paperbacks come in around 250 to 300. The language is plain, with a little French from Poirot. The only real challenge is keeping track of the many suspects. Many editions include a plan of the Calais coach, which helps.
Is It a Creepy Agatha Christie Book?
Not really. There is menace, a dead man behind a locked door and a train cut off in the snow. After Ratchett’s offer, Poirot even feels that evil has passed very close to him. But the book is a tense puzzle, not a scary one. If you want creepy Christie, And Then There Were None is darker. The 2010 television version is also much darker than the novel.
Famous Lines and Quotes From the Book
The line most often quoted is Poirot’s rule for the case: “The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible…” Two other moments are just as well known. Poirot tells Ratchett, to his face, that he does not like his face. And M. Bouc jokes that if Poirot solves this one, he will believe in miracles.
Themes: Justice, the Law and a Train Full of Strangers
The big theme is justice against the law. What should happen when the courts have failed and a guilty man walks free? The book asks that question and gives an uncomfortable answer.
Nationality is the second theme. M. Bouc keeps guessing the killer from national types, for example that a knife points to an Italian. Poirot’s method shows how wrong that shortcut is. The third is deception: almost everyone on the train is hiding something.
Adaptations: From the 1974 Film to Kenneth Branagh
- 1974 film, directed by Sidney Lumet, starred Albert Finney as Poirot. Ingrid Bergman won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as the Swedish missionary.
- BBC Radio 4 dramatized it in 1992–93, with John Moffatt as Poirot.
- 2001 CBS television film, set in the present day, with Alfred Molina in the role of Poirot.
- 2006 computer game, with David Suchet voicing Poirot. Microids released a new video game in 2023.
- 2010 episode of the television series Agatha Christie’s Poirot, with David Suchet.
- 2015 Japanese miniseries by Kōki Mitani, moved to 1933 Japan.
- 2017 stage play by Ken Ludwig, first performed in Princeton, New Jersey.
- 2017 major motion picture directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also starred as Poirot.
- 2023 graphic novel, illustrated by Bob Al-Greene.
Christie attended the royal premiere of the 1974 film. It was her last public appearance.
Where It Fits in the Hercule Poirot Series
This is the eighth of 33 Poirot novels. It follows Lord Edgware Dies and comes before Three Act Tragedy. You do not need the earlier books, because the case stands alone. If you want to meet him from the start, begin with our The Mysterious Affair at Styles review, his first case (1920).
Who Is Agatha Christie?
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was born in Torquay, Devon. Guinness World Records lists the mystery writer as the best-selling fiction author of all time, with about 2 billion copies sold. Christie wrote two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. During the First World War she worked as a nurse and then in a hospital dispensary, which is where she learned about poisons.
She knew this train. She first rode the Orient Express in 1928, and in December 1931 floods held up her own journey home by 24 hours. She dedicated the novel to her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. Miss Marple’s first case is in our The Murder at the Vicarage review.
Similar Books: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and More
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926): Poirot again, with an ending just as famous.
- And Then There Were None (1939): ten strangers trapped on an island.
- Death on the Nile (1937): Poirot, a crowded riverboat and another closed circle.
- The Guest List by Lucy Foley and The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware: modern mysteries built on the same trapped-together idea.
For more classic English crime in a gentler key, see our British cozy mysteries page.
Quick Facts
| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Series | Hercule Poirot, eighth novel |
| First published | 1 January 1934, London |
| Setting | The Istanbul–Calais coach, snowbound in Yugoslavia |
| Sleuth | Hercule Poirot, Belgian detective |
| Length | About 250–300 pages |
| Films | 1974 and 2017 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Murder on the Orient Express a cozy mystery?
Not in the modern sense. Murder on the Orient Express is a mystery novel from the Golden Age of detective fiction. The detective is a professional, and the setting is a luxury train, not a village. The cozy genre grew out of books like it.
Do I need to read other Poirot books first?
No. It works as a standalone.
What was the US title?
Murder in the Calais Coach. Dodd, Mead published it under that title in February 1934, after a serial in the Saturday Evening Post in 1933.
Which Poirot book should I read next?
Death on the Nile, for another closed circle of suspects on a journey. For another famous twist, try the Ackroyd case listed above.