Murder On The Christmas Express: All aboard for the puzzling Christmas mystery of the year

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There are a number of themes involved in the story but I really enjoyed Murder on the Christmas Express. She won the Scribe Award for her Doctor Who radio drama, The Calendar Man, and was shortlisted for the eDunnit Novel Award for The Beauty of Murder and the BBC Audio Drama Podcast Award for Children of the Stones. Set on a sleeper train racing into the snowy darkness, this atmospheric tale features a tight cast of vividly-drawn characters, and piercing observation. The Murder Express is back, still offering fine dining and one of the most engaging immersive theatre productions you could ever ask to experience. This one was just too full of heavy topics that it took away from the enjoyment of trying to figure out the mystery.

The overnight sleeper train from London is on its way to Fort William in the Scottish Highlands on Christmas Eve.

What I really enjoyed about Murder on the Christmas Express is the complex characters and just how the storyline flowed and the twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing.

I also don’t understand why multiple characters had the same names, such as Roz’s mum, Liz, and her fellow passenger, Liz. main point is that the themes of domestic abuse and sexual violence, while important to discuss, were too much for this novel. It will be up to you, and any of your passengers you trust, to solve the mystery of the diamond and what could soon be a literal pile of bodies aboard your journey. Along the way you’ll be joined by Dr Errol Earhart, who discovered the diamond, as well as the mysterious Marie amongst others.On board the train is the former Met detective Roz Parker, but one by one you get to meet the leading characters and what a real mix they are. The setting is somewhat less exotic than the Orient Express - here it's the sleeper train from London to Fort William - but there's the same opportunity for a tight band of suspects and there's the convenience of a train that gets derailed in a snowstorm, isolating the suspects and the detective - in this case a newly retired Met detective inspector, heading up to Scotland because her daughter's about to give birth. After reading both this one and The Christmas Murder Game, another thing that gets on my nerves is the clumsy representation. While the passengers and Pierre all provide suitable alibis for each other, Poirot notes that some of them observed the woman in the red kimono walking down the hallway on the night of the murder. Arbuthnot remarks that Cassetti should have been found guilty in a second trial instead of murdered, and Hardman admits he is actually a MacNeil Agency private detective who was asked to watch out for an assassin that was stalking Cassetti.

For example, there are some strained similes - there's a midwife 'whose low, reassuring tones flowed like the warm water that filled a birthing pool'. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M. It feels like an insult to Christie to keep mentioning her name here, but the actual mystery had all the right elements, under all the clutter and rape stories. On 29 September 2016, the studio issued a press release announcing much of the cast, including Johnny Depp as Ratchett, Michelle Pfeiffer as Mrs Hubbard, Penélope Cruz as Pilar Estravados (a Spanish version of Greta Ohlsson, the name coming from a character in Hercule Poirot's Christmas), [19] Judi Dench as Princess Dragomiroff, Derek Jacobi as Masterman, Leslie Odom Jr. With the train stuck in snow in the middle of nowhere, a killer stalks its carriages, picking off passengers one by one.Although I read it in February in sunny Sri Lanka I was instantly transported to the height of winter in Scotland. There are several characters including a group of University students vying for a quiz team, a couple of social influencers, a somewhat dysfunctional family, a mother and son, a stowaway, a prosecutor and the train staff. The author is also a Kate Bush fan and name-checks many of her titles in the text – again, a distraction for me. So if you have a themed book list challenge, and didn't cross off all of your themes for the year - there's even more than I listed here. He instructs the concierge to book him a first-class compartment on the Simplon-route Orient Express service leaving that night.

She has a difficult relationship with her at times, feeling she has put her career first and still having issues with coming to terms with events when she was young and about to become a young mother herself.

While inspecting the passengers' luggage, Poirot is surprised to find the label on Countess Andrenyi's luggage is wet and that her passport is smudged, Schmidt's bag contains the uniform in question, and Poirot's own luggage contains the red kimono, recently hidden there. They might seem clear to you, but they’re coloured by your own ink, your schema, made up of your past experiences, the way you view the world, your own sense of time, cultural identity and values, and so many other factors. What is presented here in the title, the cover art, and the publisher’s summary is a fun holiday mystery. This isn't helped by unnecessarily long descriptions of how a character uses his vape pen, or eats a sweet. With thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes.