The Mystery Of The Blue Train By Agatha Christie

ISBN: 978-0007234387

Published By Harper Collins

Originally Published In 1928

This is quite a long book for Christie, and was written during a period of her life when she was divorcing her first husband and I think some of the turmoil she was in comes through as many of the male characters are depicted as being deceitful cads. 

The two central characters are wealthy heiresses, Ruth is the daughter of an American millionaire, married to a cheating husband, the other, Katherine, inherits her wealth on the death of an elderly friend she has looked after for many years.

Ruth decides to divorce her husband which would leave him ruined as she is the one with the money. She takes a trip on the luxurious Blue Train to Nice. Unfortunately someone murders her at Lyon and steals the jewels she was carrying with her.  Coincidentally Katherine is also on the Blue Train and speaks to Ruth before her death. Once the murder is discovered, Poirot, who is also on the train, is drawn in to investigate.  Christie is still playing with the ideas of international crime in this book and the characters include dealers in stolen jewellery, big business and of course the wealthy upper classes. 

The central mystery of who killed Ruth Aldin is quite complex and I think it would generally be quite hard to work out who the murderer was, although it is a satisfying twist. However, there are some very interesting echoes of books to come. The most obvious is of course that this seems to be a trial run for Murder On The Orient Express. Many of the ideas from that book can be seen in a primitive way here. Also, Katherine is from St Mary Mead, the village which will eventually become Miss Marple's home. Katherine returns there after the murderer is caught to look after another old lady, who has an eye for understanding human behaviour. Perhaps this was the very start of Miss Marple...