Murder on the Orient Express

I haven't embraced mysteries with quite the fervor that I did romance earlier this year. I've been dabbling with the genre for years, but I'm picky. I need something that will entertain me and keep me engaged. I need the ending to be neither obvious nor out of nowhere. I want to be on pace with the detective. If I figure things out too quickly I get mad at the book. If I can't figure anything out, I get frustrated and the book isn't any fun. It's a delicate balance.

But recently, I've found a few authors I really like (Tana French, Gillian Flynn), and that's helped me start to embrace more mysteries and thrillers. I'm coming to appreciate the craft of the genre and how these stories are constructed. Between that and the recent movie version of Murder on the Orient Express, I finally had the push I needed to try out one of the classics.

I ended up liking this book a lot more than I expected to. Sure, Poirot is pompous and Christie withholds information from the reader a bit. But the novel is short, which I find to be a boon in mysteries. It keeps me from getting bored. And I was genuinely surprised by the ending, which still made perfect sense once all the facts were laid out. I felt like I should have seen it coming, which is exactly how I want to feel after reading a mystery.

I've got another of Agatha Christie's books sitting on my shelf. I'm looking forward to it now, and I may have to seek out some more of her work. I get the feeling I'd like Miss Marple more than Hercule Poirot.

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