Murder and Mystery...

What do you get when you combine one snowbound train, one rich American found stabbed to death in his own locked sleeping compartment, one world-renown mustachioed detective, and twelve unrelated passengers who are all now murder suspects? Agatha Christie's classic mystery Murder on the Orient Express. After studying the dead man's compartment and interviewing the other passengers one by one, it's up to Hercule Poirot to solve the murder and apprehend the killer before the snow is cleared from the tracks, or the murderer strikes again.

"We know now all that we can know," said Poirot. "We have the evidence of the passengers, the evidence of their baggage, the evidence of our eyes. We can expect no further help. It must be our part now to use our brains."

I'm so glad that Agatha Christie's novels are still in print because I love reading them. I love her crisp prose, her well-drawn characters, and her ever-puzzling mysteries. I also love her sense of humor. Like when Mary Debenham, an English governess, first sees Poirot with his "enormous moustaches" and "egg-shaped head" and thinks to herself that he's "a ridiculous-looking little man. The sort of little man one could never take seriously." Christie can be unexpectedly funny. And Murder on the Orient Express is one of her best. I thoroughly enjoyed going on this bookish ride as Hercule Poirot figured out the who, what and why. I haven't read all of Christie's novels (yet), but here are three of my favorites if you want to give her books a try: The Seven Dials Mystery, Cat Among the Pigeons, and Sparkling Cyanide. 

Happy Reading!

Strangers on a Train...

First Line: The train tore along with an angry, irregular rhythm.

Main characters: Guy Haines, an up-and-coming architect, decent and hardworking, who's trying to divorce his wife, Miriam, and Charles Anthony Bruno, an immoral and indolent playboy who loves his mother and hates his father enough to commit murder.

"(Guy) was aware of an impulse to tell Bruno everything, the stranger on the train who would listen, commiserate, and forget. The idea of telling Bruno began to comfort him. Bruno was not the ordinary stranger on the train by any means. He was cruel and corrupt enough himself to appreciate a story like that of his first love."

The Premise: Bruno slammed his palms together..."We murder for each other, see? I kill your wife and you kill my father! We meet on the train, see, and nobody knows we know each other! Perfect alibis! Catch?"

My Thoughts: So, the movie version of Strangers on a Train is probably my favorite Alfred Hitchcock film. I confess, I didn't even know it was a book first until I ran across Patricia Highsmith's novel at the library, and then I couldn't wait to read it. Hitchcock stayed fairly true to the first half of this novel, but then the two stories diverge. Highsmith spends more time exploring human nature and its duality of good and evil. And it's the psychological aspects of this novel, Bruno's obsession with Guy, and the way he torments, manipulates, and ultimately traps him, that makes Highsmith's tale so chilling and disturbing. Bruno is definitely one of the creepier, more despicable, characters ever written. This book isn't exactly a page-turner, the pacing felt a bit slow at times, but it is unforgettable. I think I prefer Hitchcock's suspenseful version of this story, but I'm glad I read the original. And I would definitely read Highsmith again! So, read the book and then check out the movie. Both are worth it!