Hello everyone! Welcome, or welcome back to my blog. Today, I am back with another couple of Hercule Poirot reviews: Lord Edgware Dies, and the world-famous Murder on the Orient Express. I hope you like the previous reviews I had posted on the same series. These are the books number nine and ten. Also, please check out my other posts if you haven’t already. You can check out my other Hercule Poirot reviews. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
Lord Edgware Dies:
It is not very often, that someone announces that she is going to kill her husband, and that, too, in front of people of prominence and a world-famous detective. But yet, Jane Wilkinson talks loudly, in front of Hercule Poirot, about ‘getting rid of’ her husband, the monstrous Lord Edgware. The matter is put aside as a joke by everyone, but a serious apparent coincidence takes place. Lord Edgware is found dead in his study, his body slumped forward and head resting on the table. A French knife is found driven into the back of his neck with medical precision, so as to severe the most vital nerves in the medulla oblongata, resulting in instant death.
Jane Wilkinson is an actress, who loves money and attention. Self-centered, beautiful, and always a bit arrogant, she is the perfect example of a person who always gets what she wants. And currently, she wants to marry the rich Duke Merton. The only way she can do that is by separating from her current husband, Lord Edgware. But the Lord refuses to grant divorce.
So, Jane visited Poirot and sent him on an errand to her husband, in one last hope of securing a divorce. But Poirot, to his surprise, found that the Lord had already granted divorce to his wife six months ago! The matter seemed to have been solved, when came the news of Lord Edgware’s murder. The suspicion fell on Lady Edgware, but there were two problems – what was her motive to kill her husband when he had already granted her divorce, and how could she have stabbed him in his library at the exact same time when she was seen with her friends at a party?
Lord Edware Dies is an extremely interesting story which shines full light upon Poirot’s uncanny abilities and strengths, and also showcases a type of personality which is actually commonly present in society, but very rarely seen.
Murder on the Orient Express:
Poirot climbed aboard the Orient Express to find his old friend and acquaintance, Monsieur Bouc. He was the director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons Lits, the company which operated the Orient express. The train, however, is unusually packed for a cold winter’s day. Coincidentally, the whole of the first-class carriage is booked, not due to some conference or gathering, but by completely random strangers, and Poirot is forced to travel second-class.
Poirot suddenly wakes up at night. The train has stopped and it does not seem like a station has arrived. Upon inquiry, he finds out that a snowdrift across the tracks has forced the Orient Express to stop. They are somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Yugoslavia, with no habitation for miles around. But these are not the only discoveries. A man, Mr. Ratchett, is found dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, with his door locked from the inside. The snow around the train made any escape impossible. From this, Poirot drew the conclusion that the murderer was still on the train, and he must pick him or her out from a wide variety of foreigners with different personalities, before someone else is killed.
Murder on the Orient Express is arguably one of Agatha Christie’s best works and definitely the most well-known. The complexity of the plot, the Poirot’s ingenuity, the originality of the story and the startling but fully logical twist in the end makes Murder on the Orient Express a must-read for any fan of detective fiction.
Outro:
So, that’s it for today, guys. I hope all of you liked the review. If yes, then that’s great! If you didn’t, then still stay tuned; who knows?, you might like the next post I post. I would recommend you to please check out my other posts, if you haven’t already. Please like, and subscribe to my blog. It’s fun, and it’s free. And most importantly, stay home, and stay safe. Goodbye!