Solve the Case • Murder on the Orient Express

I'd never read an Agatha Christie book prior to this year, but now I've read two (And Then There Were None, as well as Murder on the Orient Express) and I must say that I really enjoyed them. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I'm not much of a mystery reader. I usually tend to stick to my usual contemporary and fantasy reads and very rarely venture out of the box. However, I do occasionally make an exception - and that was the case with these two novels.

Prior to even reading Murder on the Orient Express, I had already heard a lot about it. There were people I knew (Hi Rachel!) who had read it and enjoyed it, it's obviously a very recognizable title and a new film adaptation was released at the end of this year. I kept seeing it pop up everywhere, so I finally gave in to the hype, bit the bullet and decided to read it.

Murder on the Orient Express is a simple enough tale. The famed detective Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express on his way to a new case he will be working on in London, only to find himself stranded on a snowed-in train where a murder has just been committed. It's a mystery with a cap on the setting and the characters, and that should (in my mind) make it more difficult to set up the mystery. But Christie is really good at what she does, and manages to keep me on my toes until the very end. The format (with the evidence gathered and eventually put together by Poirot) was really neat, and the clues and the solution very clever. All in all, it was a satisfying mystery that was right up my alley, and I'm pleased I gave in to the hype and finally read it.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie | Series: Hercule Poirot #10

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks | Publication Date: October 28, 2003 (or. Jan 1934)

Source: Kindle e-book purchased

Buy the Book: Book Depository | IndieBound | Barnes and Noble | Amazon

It's the second to the last of the Picky Pledge Reading Challenge reviews for 2017! As we usually do, Hannah and I are answering a couple of questions related to this particular challenge.

1) How long has this book been on your TBR? I bought the book in 2015, so two years!

2) What kind of hype (social media, Goodreads, etc) made you want to read it? I mean, it's Agatha Christie. She's a name that's well-known in the literary world. It helps that a lot of my friends enjoyed this one and the film was coming out this year.

3) Did it live up to the hype? It did for me! It wasn't a perfect book, but I really enjoyed the mystery.