Snow. It’s the first thing you really feel when you pick up Murder on the Orient Express. Not the cold, necessarily, but the silence of it. That suffocating, heavy blanket of white that brings a luxury train—a marvel of 1930s engineering—to a grinding, helpless halt in the middle of nowhere. It is the perfect locked-room mystery, except the room is a carriage and the lock is a snowdrift in Yugoslavia.
Hercule Poirot just wanted a quiet trip back to London. Honestly, the man can’t even have a cup of tisane without stumbling over a corpse. But this isn't just any corpse. Samuel Ratchett, a man who radiates "evil" according to Poirot’s own gut instinct, is found stabbed twelve times in his compartment. The door is locked from the inside. The window is open, but there are no tracks in the snow.
It’s the ultimate puzzle.
The Case That Defined Hercule Poirot
Most people think they know Poirot from the movies. Maybe they picture Albert Finney’s high-pitched energy, Peter Ustinov’s grandfatherly charm, or Kenneth Branagh’s... well, let’s call it a "bold" mustache choice. But in the book, Christie writes him with a specific kind of clinical detachment. He is a man of "order and method." When he stares at those twelve stab wounds, he isn't just looking at a crime scene; he's looking at a mathematical impossibility.
The wounds are weird. Some are deep, some are shallow. Some were delivered with the right hand, some with the left. It makes no sense. Unless, of course, you stop looking at the evidence and start looking at the people.
The cast is a literal cross-section of 1930s society. You've got a Russian Princess, a Hungarian Count, a Swedish missionary, and an American socialite who won't stop talking. On paper, they have nothing in common. They shouldn't even be in the same room. Yet, here they are, trapped together while the "little grey cells" of the world’s greatest detective start whirring.
The Real-Life Tragedy Behind the Fiction
Christie didn't just pull this plot out of thin air. If you find the backstory of the victim, Samuel Ratchett, particularly chilling, that’s because it’s based on the very real, very horrific Lindbergh kidnapping of 1932.
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In the novel, Ratchett is revealed to be Cassetti, a man who kidnapped and murdered a three-year-old girl named Daisy Armstrong. In real life, Charles Lindbergh’s son was taken from his home and later found dead. The public outcry was massive. By weaving this into Murder on the Orient Express, Christie tapped into a raw, global nerve. She took a news headline and turned it into the moral engine of her story. It wasn't just about "who did it" anymore. It became about whether a man like Cassetti deserved to die.
Why the Ending Still Sparks Arguments
Let’s talk about the solution. If you haven't read it or seen the films, look away now. Seriously.
The reveal is legendary: they all did it.
Every single passenger in that coach—minus Poirot and his friend M. Bouc—had a hand in the execution. Twelve wounds, twelve jurors. It was a self-appointed court of justice. They didn't just kill a man; they carried out a sentence.
This is where the debate gets heated. Poirot, a man who usually lives by the letter of the law, decides to let them go. He presents two solutions to the police: one involving a mysterious intruder who escaped, and the true one. He allows the "intruder" theory to be the official story.
Some fans hate this. They argue it ruins Poirot’s character. If the law is flexible based on how "bad" the victim was, then the law doesn't exist. Others find it the most moving moment in the entire series. It’s the one time Poirot prioritizes "justice" over "the law." He sees a group of people broken by grief—parents, servants, and friends of the Armstrong family—and he decides they’ve suffered enough.
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Modern Interpretations and the Branagh Shift
When Kenneth Branagh took on the role in the 2017 film, he leaned heavily into this moral crisis. Unlike the book, where Poirot seems relatively at peace with his decision, Branagh’s Poirot is agonized. He screams into the wind. He looks like he’s losing his mind.
It’s a very modern take. We live in an era where we don't trust vigilante justice as easily as Christie’s 1934 audience might have. Back then, the memory of the Lindbergh case made people bloodthirsty for "the right kind" of revenge. Today, we’re a bit more skeptical of people taking the law into their own hands, even if the victim is a monster.
How to Read (or Re-read) This Classic
If you're going back to the book, don't just focus on the clues. Pay attention to the dialogue. Christie is a master of the "hidden in plain sight" technique. Every time a character speaks, they are lying, but they are lying in a way that reveals their true personality.
- Watch the timings: The entire mystery hinges on a watch stopped at 1:15.
- Listen to Mrs. Hubbard: She’s the loudest person on the train, and usually, the loudest person has the most to hide.
- The Kimono: That scarlet silk kimono that keeps appearing? It’s a classic red herring, but it also serves to show how the "conspirators" coordinated their movements.
The genius of Murder on the Orient Express isn't that the clues are hard to find. It’s that they are so conflicting that your brain naturally tries to simplify them. You want to pick one suspect. Christie forces you to realize that when the evidence points everywhere, it’s because everyone is involved.
The Legacy of the Luxury Train
Interestingly, the Orient Express itself became a character because of this book. Before Christie, it was just a fancy way for rich people to get to Istanbul. After 1934, it became synonymous with mystery, danger, and glamour. Even today, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express trades on this legacy. People pay thousands of dollars to sit in those same mahogany-paneled cars, half-hoping (but mostly not) that a snowdrift will trap them with a detective.
It's a testament to the power of a single story. Christie took a confined space and filled it with the entire spectrum of human emotion: grief, rage, loyalty, and ultimately, mercy.
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Moving Beyond the Hype
If you want to truly appreciate what Christie did here, you have to look at her other works for context. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, she broke the rules of the narrator. In And Then There Were None, she broke the rules of the victim. In Murder on the Orient Express, she broke the rules of the suspect list.
She was a disruptor.
She took a genre that was becoming stale and turned it on its head. She didn't care about "fair play" in the traditional sense; she cared about the psychological impact of the reveal. That’s why we’re still talking about a book written nearly a century ago.
Actionable Next Steps for Mystery Fans
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of Poirot or the "locked train" trope, here is how you should proceed:
- Read the Original Text: Even if you’ve seen the movies, Christie’s prose is incredibly tight. You can finish it in an afternoon. Notice how she uses the characters' nationalities as a way to play with Poirot's (and the reader's) prejudices.
- Compare the 1974 and 2017 Films: Watch the Sidney Lumet version with Albert Finney first. It captures the period's "theatrical" feel. Then watch Branagh’s version to see how the story is adapted for a 21st-century moral lens.
- Explore the Lindbergh Connection: Read about the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr. It adds a layer of genuine tragedy to the fictional Armstrong case that makes the ending feel much more earned.
- Check out "The Mystery of the Blue Train": If you love the train setting, this is another Poirot mystery Christie wrote earlier. She actually hated it, but it’s a fascinating look at how she was refining the "death on the rails" concept before she perfected it with the Orient Express.
- Look for the "Clue" Connection: If you enjoy the ensemble cast aspect, watch the movie Clue. It owes a massive debt to the structure Christie perfected here, using a disparate group of strangers trapped in a single location.
The beauty of a perfect mystery is that even when you know the ending, the journey remains fascinating. You stop looking for the killer and start looking for the craft. And in the case of this particular train ride, the craft is unmatched.