Murder on the Orient Express

By Agatha Christie


I grabbed this book off a shelf in a bookstore in Osaka. I had just finished To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and I wanted something quick and tasty as a palette cleanser. My G-d, I’ve been sleeping on Agatha Christie for far too long. This book was an absolute delight. I read it in about four hours, with the same fervor that I might apply to eating a perfect steak. Poirot is a catty delight, the plot is a lovely series of twists and turns, and I adored the very explicit structure of the book. Many chapters are explicitly labelled with the specific piece of evidence they provide, which makes the reader feel like the story is never trying to hide the ball. I clearly need more Poirot in my life.