Even those who are not avid readers may have heard of Agatha Christie; famous mystery author. Recently I had the pleasure of reading her story "Murder on the Orient Express". I chose this book for two reasons. The first being interest in the movie that came out fairly recently, and the second because I had seen the show "Poirot" and decided I was interested in anything that involved the mustached detective.

While I can't speak for the movie (since I haven't seen it), the book lived up to my expectations. The plot is simple; detective Hercule Poirot ends up headed through Europe when a sudden snowstorm brings it to a halt. The passengers on the train discover the next day that among them, a man has been stabbed to death in his own cabin.

At surface level, this may seem like a typical who-dun-it situation, but, and without giving too much of the mystery away, it becomes clear by the end of the story that it is not quite what you were expecting. By the time the mystery was revealed, I was frantically flipping pages.

While some criticize Agatha Christie for having somewhat formulaic characters, I did not find that to be the case with this story. The characters you are meant to root for are very much likeable and have distinct personalities, while the character the audience is meant to hate, the infamous Edward Ratchet, the murdered man who ironically himself committed the heinous murder of a young child, is easy to dislike.

The final twist to the story definitely does it justice. And while I haven't seen the movie yet, I would recommend reading the book before seeing any film versions of this mystery. It is a story I have found myself reading multiple times, to spot the clues I missed out on the first time around. Any murder mystery, in my opinion, should be an interactive experience, with the reader being able to play detective themselves if they so wished, and this novel was no exception. Upon reading the story again, it was clear that one could solve it on their own if they so wished.

But then again, not everyone has Hercule Poirot's little grey cells.