Murder on the Orient Express

Did You Know?

• The kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son in 1932 inspired the kidnapping element in Christie's novel.
• Agatha Christie's first journey on the Orient Express in late 1928 and a blizzard near Çerkezköy, Turkey, in February 1929 helped inspire the novel.
• The novel's solution raised the ire of Raymond Chandler in his essay The Simple Art of Murder.

Plot

After taking the Taurus Express from Aleppo to Istanbul, Hercule Poirot arrives at the Tokatlian Hotel and receives a telegram prompting him to return to London. He books a first-class compartment on the Simplon-route Orient Express, but the train is fully booked; through his friend Monsieur Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, Poirot obtains a second-class berth. Passengers include American widow Caroline Hubbard, English governess Mary Debenham, Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson, American businessman Samuel Ratchett with his secretary Hector MacQueen and valet Edward Henry Masterman, Italian-American car salesman Antonio Foscarelli, Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff with her maid Hildegarde Schmidt, Hungarian Count Rudolph Andrenyi and his wife Helena, English Colonel John Arbuthnot, American salesman Cyrus B. Hardman, and Greek doctor Stavros Constantine.

Ratchett, who has received death threats, tries to hire Poirot for protection, but Poirot refuses. That night, Poirot observes strange occurrences; he is awakened by a cry from Ratchett's compartment, and later hears a loud thump. The train is stuck in a snowdrift between Vinkovci and Brod.

Reception

The Times Literary Supplement of 11 January 1934 outlined the plot and concluded that the little grey cells solve once more the seemingly insoluble, and that Mrs Christie makes an improbable tale very real and keeps her readers enthralled and guessing to the end. In The New York Times Book Review of 4 March 1934, Isaac Anderson wrote that the great Belgian detective's guesses are more than shrewd, they are positively miraculous, and although both the murder plot and the solution verge upon the impossible, Agatha Christie has contrived to make them appear quite convincing for the time being.

The reviewer in The Guardian of 12 January 1934 noted that the murder would have been perfect had Poirot not been on the train and overheard a conversation; the solution surprised their owner as much as it may well surprise the reader. Robert Barnard said this novel was the best of the railway stories, with the Orient Express snowed up in Yugoslavia providing the ideal closed set-up for a classic-style exercise in detection, and that it contains his favourite line in all Christie.

The solution raised the ire of Raymond Chandler. H.R.F. Keating included the novel in his list of 100 Best Crime and Mystery Books. In 1995, it was included in Mystery Writers of America's The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time list. In December 2014, Entertainment Weekly listed it among the Nine Great Christie Novels.

Adaptations

The BBC Radio 4 serialised the novel in five parts, with John Moffatt taking on the role of Poirot. Michael Bakewell adapted the script, Enyd Williams directed, and the episodes aired from 28 December 1992 to 1 January 1993. Among the cast were André Maranne as Bouc, Joss Ackland as Ratchett/Cassetti, Sylvia Syms as Mrs Hubbard, Siân Phillips as Princess Dragomiroff, Francesca Annis as Mary Debenham, and Peter Polycarpou as Dr Constantine. A later audio production came from Audible in 2017, with Tom Conti voicing Poirot.

Sophie Okonedo played Mary Debenham, Eddie Marsan portrayed Ratchett/Cassetti, and Art Malik handled the narration. Decades earlier, in 1966, a Soviet radio play featured Vsevolod Yakut as Poirot, Rostislav Plyatt as Colonel Arbuthnot, Maria Babanova as Hubbard, Oleg Yefremov as Hector McQueen, Leonid Kanevsky as Antonio Foscarelli, Angelina Stepanova as Princess Dragomiroff, and Alexander Lazarev as Hardman. The 1974 film adaptation, directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by John Brabourne and Richard B. Goodwin, proved both a critical and commercial success.

Albert Finney starred as Poirot, with a supporting cast that included Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, John Gielgud, Michael York, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Jacqueline Bisset, Wendy Hiller, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Roberts, Colin Blakely, Denis Quilley, and Ingrid Bergman, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film made minor alterations: Mary Debenham became the Armstrongs' secretary, Masterman was renamed Beddoes, the dead maid became Paulette, Helena Goldenberg became Helena Grünwald, Antonio Foscarelli became Gino Foscarelli, Caroline Martha Hubbard became Harriet Belinda Hubbard, and the train company's director changed from the Belgian Monsieur Bouc to the Italian Signor Bianchi.

Publication history

The novel was first published in the United Kingdom by Collins Crime Club on 1 January 1934 as a hardcover of 256 pages, retailing at seven shillings and sixpence. In the United States, Dodd Mead and Company published it on 28 February 1934 as a hardcover of 302 pages, priced at $2, under the title Murder in the Calais Coach to avoid confusion with Graham Greene's 1932 novel Stamboul Train. The first true publication was a US serialisation in six instalments in the Saturday Evening Post from 30 September to 4 November 1933, illustrated by William C. Hoople.

A UK serialisation appeared in three instalments in the Grand Magazine in March, April, and May 1934, abridged by about 25% and without chapter divisions. Subsequent editions include a 1940 Pocket Books paperback, a 1948 Penguin paperback, a 1953 Collins Crime Club new edition, a 1957 edition as part of A Treasury of Great Mysteries, and various other printings. A 2006 Poirot Facsimile Edition reproduced the 1934 UK first edition. Advertisements in the back pages of other Christie novels claimed that Murder on the Orient Express had proven to be Christie's best-selling book to date and the best-selling book published in the Collins Crime Club series.