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    The Mystery of the Blue Train: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    The Mystery of the Blue Train: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    The Mystery of the Blue Train: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Mystery of the Blue Train: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Hugh Fraser

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Robbery and brutal murder aboard a luxury transport ensnares the ever-attentive Hercule Poirot in The Mystery of the Blue Train, from Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie

    When the luxurious Blue Train arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But she will never wake again—for a heavy blow has killed her, disfiguring her features almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious rubies are missing.

    The prime suspect is Ruth’s estranged husband, Derek. Yet Hercule Poirot is not convinced, so he stages an eerie reenactment of the journey, complete with the murderer on board. . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9780062233783
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She died in 1976, after a prolific career spanning six decades.

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    Reviews for The Mystery of the Blue Train

    4.5/5

    316 ratings31 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Different enough from the short story to make me want to finish it
    • 3/5
      I never quite know what to make out about this book. It passes the time quite nicely, but its only real merit is that it shows the Poirot in the guise of a fatherly confessor - 'Papa Poirot' who pops up in other Christie books. Oh yes and its an interesting precursor to the other great train murder mystery 'Murder on the Orient Express'
    • 4/5
      This was my second Agatha Christie, and my first read as an adult. I read "Murder on the Orient Express" when I was 11 or 12 and loved it. I've enjoyed several "Masterpiece" renditions of her books, so I thought I'd try another one. I had the same problem with this book that I had with those movies: that strange sense of being cheated when you find out that Poirot (or Miss Marple) knows things that you haven't yet been told. I always feel like I'm doing so well not being lured in by the obvious red herrings, and that I'm on my way to grasping the solution, and then right near the end, "BAM!" I get new details that screw everything up. I would just really love it, for once, if I could solve a mystery somewhere near Chapter Three. Then again, if I did, I don't know if I'd end up thinking much of the author.This book irritated me at first with its overly highbrow language and with the manner in which it introduces information. For at least the first seven chapters, it seems that we meet brand new characters in each chapter, and Christie gives as little and as distracting information about them as possible. When I started out, I read a chapter or two a day, but by the time of the actual "mystery" I couldn't keep up with what had happened, and had to go back and start over. The second time, I read the whole thing in one sitting. You have to read this book fast, or you'll probably get confused; it's not a "whenever I have a spare moment over the course of the next few weeks" kind of book. Fortunately, it only took me about three and a half hours to read.There must be something here, though, because while I feel both wildly unsatisfied with the solution to the whole thing and aggravated with the experience of reading it, I can't help but take it as a personal challenge to "get it right next time." You win this time, Hercule Poirot.
    • 4/5
      Even after reading several Poirot stories from Agatha Christie, I'm still always put on the wrong foot by this cunning author. I love the atmosphere of Europe during the interbellum which comes out of the story and of course the individual characters who are all forever under suspicion by Poirot. Very nice little story, recommended for anyone who likes mysteries.
    • 4/5
      Witty and this time I did not see it coming. Always enjoyable, this curious Hercule Poirot
    • 4/5
      Reading this one after a lifetime of loving her more famous train mystery, Murder on the Orient Express certainly was fun! I enjoyed all the characters, the locations and the red herrings! I did have a correct guess as to “who Dunnit” some what early in the story but no idea of the how/why so it didn’t lesson my enjoyment!
    • 4/5
      It's an amusing book, with well rounded characters (with the exception of that useless French dancer) and complex enough plot. The ending is a bit of a let down because she pulled yet another "the least suspected one is the guilty one", but all in all you won't regret reading it.
    • 4/5
      As I began reading Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train, I thought this was going to be an indigo-tinted version of Murder on the Orient Express. The two novels bear some similarities: the confinement of a train chugging across Europe, a rich American murdered in her sleeping compartment, a cast of suspects with equal portions of motive and alibi, contradictory statements from witnesses, and a funny little Belgian detective with a luxurious moustache who's there to ferret out the truth. But it's not long before The Mystery of the Blue Train goes off on a different track than Murder on the Orient Express. While Blue Train is not quite as cleverly-plotted as "Orient Express, it's still a fun ride on par with Agatha's other "cozy mysteries." Published in 1928 (six years before Murder on the Orient Express), The Mystery of the Blue Train centers around Ruth Van Aldin, the daughter of an American millionaire, who is found strangled in her sleeping compartment on the train. This comes shortly after she's been given a priceless ruby as a gift from her father. Of course, the jewel is nowhere to be found on the train. As always, it's up to Hercule Poirot—-traveling on the same train—-to get to the bottom of the case. He's hired by Rufus Van Aldin who wants the scoundrel responsible for his daughter's murder caught and convicted of the crime. The list of suspects facing Poirot is daunting. There's Derek Kettering, Ruth's estranged husband of ten years who was just about to be served with divorce papers, thus ending his claim to the Van Aldin fortune. There's exotic dancer Mirelle, Derek's mistress, who would like nothing better than to see her lover's wife six feet under ground. There's Katherine Grey, a fellow passenger on the Blue Train who happened to strike up a conversation with Ruth shortly before her death and was quickly taken into the doomed woman's confidence. There's Major Knighton, Rufus Van Aldin's secretary who knows more about the ruby than he should. There's Ruth's maid, Ada Mason, who abruptly leaves the train before it reaches its destination. And the list goes on and on in true Christie fashion. She was the Queen of Bafflement, throwing so many would-be murderers at us that we're constantly shifting our suspicion as the novel goes along. Agatha's powers of description have never been keener than they are here in The Mystery of the Blue Train. Whether it's painting a succinct word-picture of a character—-"a little man with a face like a rat"-—or of the rubies themselves-—"the stones glowed like blood"—-her prose is unmistakably memorable. In this novel which comes early in Poirot's literary career, he seems more sprightly, more energetic and comedically pompous. Agatha rarely misses an opportunity to expound on the detective's methodology. Here's a sampling of comments from Poirot, I found scattered throughout the novel: "What is important? What is not? One cannot say at this stage. But we must note each little fact carefully." "This is great," said Van Aldin. "Great! You are the goods, M. Poirot. Once and for all, you are the goods." "It is nothing," said Poirot modestly. "Order, method, being prepared for eventualities beforehand—-that is all there is to it." "Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective." "But I am a good detective. I suspect. There is nobody and nothing that I do not suspect. I believe nothing that I am told." The Poirot of this novel is one with a comically inflated ego. There is not nearly enough room for his personality on the page—-he explodes past the boundaries of the book with his sense of self-importance. Tiresome? Perhaps. But also very funny. Witness this exchange when he shows up to interview a pair of unsuspecting servants: "Voila," said the stranger, and sank into a wooden arm-chair. "I am Hercule Poirot." "Yes, Monsieur?" "You do not know the name?" "I have never heard it," said Hippolyte. "Permit me to say that you have been badly educated. It is the name of one of the great ones of this world." Yes, Poirot's truly one of the great ones—-and not just in his own mind. The Mystery of the Blue Train spotlights Poirot in one of his finest hours. The sleuthing is terrific and the writing is just as keen. I'll leave you with a few interesting bits of trivia about The Mystery of the Blue Train: *We get our first snapshot of St. Mary Mead in these pages. Katherine Grey has just left her job in the tiny village before she books passage on the Blue Train. We briefly meet some of the gossipy old birds in those scenes. One of them remarks, "You know, things don't happen in St. Mary Mead." Not, that is, until two years later when the first Miss Marple novel, Murder at the Vicarage, is published. *Theatrical agent Joseph Aarons makes a cameo near the end of the book. He also shows up in The Big Four, Murder on the Links, and Double Sin. *This is the first Poirot novel to be told in the third person with no narrator. Hastings is nowhere to be found (though Poirot does make a brief mention of his name late in the book—-I think Agatha did that just to remind people that Hastings was still out there somewhere). *The plot of Blue Train is an expansion of a short story, "The Plymouth Express," which appeared in the collection The Under Dog in 1951 in the USA and in 1974 in the UK under the title Poirot's Early Cases. Immediately after finishing Blue Train, I read the short story. While "The Plymouth Express" is nowhere near as good as the novel, Agatha does a good job of setting up (and revealing) a brain teaser within just a few short pages.
    • 5/5
      This early Poirot is a treat. Written and set in the late 1920s, it's both a highly satisfactory murder mystery, and a glimpse into a world long passed away.Ruth Kettering, an American heiress, has been at odds with her extremely well-bred but dissolute English husband. She decides to take the famous de luxe Blue Train to escape to the Riveria. But look -- isn't that her husband just a few berths down . . . ?Needless to say, another prominent passenger on this trip is Hercule Poirot, who appears here in his brash and self-aggrandizing early incarnation. Of course he is called in to consult when the unthinkable becomes the reality. The only thing I love more than a charming English setting and detail in an Agatha Christie novel is a charming foreign setting, and this is an excellent example.Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Hugh Fraser is an excellent narrator and story teller. This is a wonderful Agatha Christie mystery, and Hugh Fraser brings the story and characters to life. Thank you Mr Fraser.
    • 2/5
      On a train bound for the French Riviera, Poirot meets a young heiress, and becomes embroiled in a tragic murder case.

      Christie herself admitted that she only cobbled this one together to make some money during a difficult time, so I don’t feel too bad about disliking "The Mystery of the Blue Train". The book has a few good elements: indeed the characters are intriguing, and a dynamic, very 1920s Poirot dominates the proceedings, but things don’t really come together. (Nor do they in the David Suchet adaptation.) Unsurprisingly, given the novel’s provenance, it feels perfunctory and – outside of Poirot himself – never vital.

      This was the first Poirot novel I read, so it has a special place in my heart, and it’s certainly not his worst, in spite of Christie’s opinion. But it’s still not very good.

      Interestingly, given it was a rush job, this novel introduces two recurring elements of Christie’s canon: Poirot’s valet George, and a description of the village of St. Mary Mead, which will later be home to Miss Marple.

      Poirot ranking: 32 of 38
    • 4/5
      Chosen because I have read a lot of disappointing novels lately and wanted something reliable, which this was.Ruth Kettering is murdered and priceless rubies stolen from her on the Blue Train across France to Nice. Also travelling on that train is Katherine Grey, who has just inherited a fortune, Ruth's estranged husband Derek, Derek's former mistress Mirelle, and (of course) Hercule Poirot.I enjoyed the first half of the story very much. There were humorous passages involving Poirot's egotism and Katherine's friends, but the actual solution was a little convoluted and left me slightly confused. SPOILERSWhat exactly was the Comte de la Roche's involvement? What money was Mirelle promising to get for him?
    • 4/5
      it's a Hercule Poiriot novel, where he gets to exercise his little grey cells on a murder and robbery of some famous rubies. The rubies in question are the focus of the start of the book, when they're bought by an American millionaire to give to his daughter. She's the apple of his eye and is currently married to the wrong man. He's been carrying on with a dancing girl, and so Papa decides that his darling Ruthie should cut her losses and divorce the dastardly Derek Kettering. However it doesn't all quite go to plan. once the background has been put in place (by way of jewel dealers, dancing girls and lots of beautiful stereotype characters) the cast is assembled and the train sets off the the South of France - only someone doesn't get there...
      It's a murder and robbery that leave you wondering if it is one crime or two. Are they connected? Who has motive? Some have motive for one crime and not the other, some have an alibi, others do not. As usual, Poiriot gets to the bottom of it. I did find myself wondering about one character who seemed a little bit too good to be true, but won't spoil the surprise by giving it away. It all ends with the murderer unmasked and a fine match being made. A real evocation of an era past.
    • 4/5
      Who killed a wealthy American heiress on the luxury Blue Train while traveling to France to meet her lover? Was it her about-to-be-divorced-without-a-pence aristocrat husband? Or her French lover who only wanted her for her jewels? Or someone else entirely? Fortunately Hercule Poirot is on the case to bring about justice. An amusing note: Last year I started reading the Miss Marple and Poirot series in order, alternately between the two each month. I thought I was due to read a Poirot but I was mightily confused when this one started out in St. Mary Mead, the little village where Miss Marple spends her days between solving murders. The "old pussy" doesn't actually make an appearance here, and Poirot eventually turned up to reassure me that I hadn't messed up my reading schedule, but I thought it was amusing that Christie gave a sly nod to her other series within this one. And now I wonder: how would Miss Marple and Poirot have got on if they did wind up trying to solve a murder together??
    • 4/5

      Katherine Grey, the enigmatic young woman of the memorable eyes, has left her post of caregiver (the old woman died leaving Katherine well off) in St. Mary Mead (No Marple) and is bound for Nice on The Blue Train to visit her money hungry cousin.....

      Lady Ruth Kettering (an American Heiress) is about to divorce her husband (at the behest of her father) and meet her gigolo of a lover in Nice, she too is aboard the Blue Train..... Lady Ruth is carrying the Former Tsarina's rubies and many people are very aware of that fact. In a moment of blue funk, Ruth befriends Katherine and unburdens herself.....

      Ruth's gigolo, her husband, her husband's discarded mistress are also on the train....... All want Ruth's money and or the rubies.... Just outside Gare de Lyon, Ruth is found in her compartment strangled to death with a bashed in face....

      There is no lack of suspects...... and there are the mysterious shadowers of the rubies......

      Between a thoughtful & astute Miss Grey and Monsieur Poirot Ruth's murderer is caught and the rubies discretely go on to their next owner.
    • 4/5
      I know when I pick up an Agatha Christie book that I am going to enjoy the read and The Mystery Of The Blue Train did not disappoint. When the daughter of an American millonaire travels to the south of France on the luxury Blue Train, and is found dead upon arrival, suspicion falls upon her estranged husband. But Hercule Poirot is on the case and he has other ideas.Although it wasn’t difficult to figure out what happened, this story nevertheless held my attention and was very readable. I found Poirot a little more sympathetic than he usually is as he seemed to actually care about Katherine Grey, the young woman caught up in this murder. Originally published in novel form in 1928, this story was developed from one of her short stories, “The Plymouth Express” and is notable for the first mention of the fictional village of Mary St. Mead which was eventually to become the home of Miss Marple. I have read that Agatha Christie did not consider this book one of better ones, but I most certainly found this a very satisfying read.
    • 3/5
      Early thriller-style Poirot. Not her best but enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Another good Poirot book. It was hard to get into, as the action didn't start immediately, but I enjoyed the character studies in the beginning. As slow as the murder actually was to present itself, though, the resolution felt rushed. That seems to be Christie's style as the books progress.
    • 5/5
      Another great Hercule Poirot mystery by the queen of mysteries. In my opinion the book is much better than the movie, which didn’t convey the story as well as Mrs. Christie wrote it. It was a very well written book with an intricate plot, difficult to unwind—as her books generally are. You will notice Poirot had a much more foreign dialogue than her later books, which, I think, used to confer him more charm and appeal. I found it interesting that divorce is mentioned as the only possible alternative to one of the characters: in 1928 Mrs. Christie’s husband asked her for a divorce… Highly recommend this book for Agatha Christie’s fans.
    • 5/5
      Great story, and I grew to like the reader, he reads very well, characters are impersonated very well.
    • 5/5
      Perfect, full of tension and beautifully presented by Hugh Fraser!
    • 4/5
      As always Hercule Poirot always gets his man or woman. He does at times act a little stumped or confused but this is a very shrewd move on his part. He tries to put the people at ease so they feel as though they are safe. It has a new twist at every turn, if you think you know who the culprit is, do not make any bets on it. Not as good as others I have read but none the less it was well written.
    • 4/5
      A solid Poirot outing as Christie begins to hit her stride. And as a fan of train settings, I had all the more reason to like this one (even though trains don't dominate here).
    • 4/5
      Another Hercule Poirot story, and a relatively standard mystery. A woman gets killed. On a train of course. Who did it? The husband? The lover? The Butler? Who knows? Well, Poirot does. Not one of the best Christie's I've read, nor very original. Still, this book isn't bad. It continues to impress me how well Christie does dialogue. Even long-winded conversations between characters (of which there are quite a few in this book) somehow stay interesting and entertaining, yet plausible. I've come to expect that an Agatha Christie-book will keep me happy for the time it takes me to read it, and this one did. Just.
    • 4/5
      England, ca 1928Ruth Kettering bliver foræret nogle meget kostbare rubiner af sin far. Hun er ved at forlade sin mand og tager rubinerne med i Det Blå Tog mod rivieraen. Hun bliver kvalt i toget og hendes ansigt bliver knust. Faderen er dybt ulykkelig og hyrer Hercule Poirot, som også var med toget. Mr Goby hjælper faderen Rufus Van Aldin med oplysninger på svigersønnen Derek Kettering og dennes elskerinde danserinden Mirelle. Derek er i desperat pengenød og konens død vil hjælpe stærkt på det. Derek får afsmag for Mirelle og interesserer sig i stedet for Katherine Gray, som nylig har arvet en formue.En glat juvelhæler ved navn Papopolous har en datter Zia, der skylder Poirot en tjeneste for at have ladet en Antonio Pirezzio gå fri for sytten år siden.Hercule Poirot og Katherine Gray bliver venner og afslører til sidst kammertjeneren Richard Knighton og stuepigen Ada Mason som farlige forbrydere, der har Ruths død på samvittigheden.Glimrende Poirot mysterie.
    • 4/5
      Typical Christie mystery with the lovable detective solving it. Entertaining.
    • 4/5
      American Ruth Kettering is in an unhappy marriage with Derek, an impoverished English aristocrat who had become too indiscreet. When Ruth's millionaire father convinces her to file for divorce, the scheming begins. Ruth is found dead on the train to the Riviera and Poirot finds a number of suspects all circling round the victim.I place this one firmly in the middle of Christie's work; it isn't one of her greats (And Then There Were None) and it certainly isn't one of her stinkers (hello, Elephants Can Remember). It's a solid Poirot that is difficult to figure out, mainly because the reader isn't given a vital piece of evidence until 20 pages from the end.I detect the beginnings of her later Murder on the Orient Express here, with a murder of a wealthy, entitled person on a train, though that's where the similarities end. MotOE is a masterpiece.
    • 5/5
      By Jove, if it isn't Monsieur Poirot. I've been reading all the Marple novels recently for the first time. I had forgotten about Poirot stories. This book threatens to be the best of the lot. I knew I had forgotten mostly about it, except the basic premise. This book has a fragile beauty and a grim charm to it. The fact that Poirot's shenanigans are kept to a minimum helps. It didn't feel like a re read at all. Therefore I do not cheat and I did honestly succeed in guessing the murderer's identity. More of that later.The book has to end somewhere. I didn't catch the hint regarding the ruby, the "Heart of Fire". Was the original in Mirelle's possession or was it a fake? Mirelle could not exact no revenge on her lost lover, but she is an unimaginable character. Agatha Christie makes me meet people I will never meet, not here, not in this age. I'm speaking of people in high places, but also people who have served in war, and those doughty Empire builders who were definitely English. I cannot judge how true these characters are, and when someone like Mirelle, or the Compte de la Roche appears, I'm at a loss to understand whether Agatha Christie is improvising or whether these creatures really walked the good Earth at some point in the lost past.The beginning was intriguing. There's a transaction of the ruby being carried, and a lot of very varied people being introduced. I would have liked this segment to go on more. But then in a jarring change Poirot appears and things get dull. But this doesn't last long. The passages where the victim is on the train are fantastic. A luxury train is very archaic. It's also very ghostly, like a ship in a mist. But a train, I think has more romance, especially one peopled by the sorts that the author imagined here. The victim is millionaire extraordinaire Van Aldin's daughter. She is a flawed beauty, a very beautiful woman who has inherited two millions (and a too masculine jaw line) and is about to die needlessly. Herein lies the one glitch in this story, if I must nitpick. The murder was not essential. And if I remember correctly, most Agatha Christie murders happen because of urgency and viral necessity. Someone named the Marquis doesn't sound like a serial killer. But here he is made out to be a ruthless(omigod, pun accidental) killer. The trouble of killing, but also of all the clever alibis being planned, they aren't worth doing if the cleverness is there. There is no motive for murder. In the movie " Once Upon A Time In the West" Henry Fonda says, people are scared when they are dying. That I can understand, but here the dead bodies don't give evidence line is not convincing and lacks punch. But we needed a murder, and a murder simply had to be conjured. Where would we be if Ruth was alive, if only being a victim of theft only? For one, I would have wanted very much to read this story, but it would be a short story. There wouldn't be enough to go on to make of the theft of the rubies a fascinating tale as this book turned out to be.A few random things now; that premonition of the attractive Katherine Grey that came out of the blue, was a manipulation of the author, who hid part of the experience. But I did guess the murderer's identity. I knew who was the Marquis. There was the simple line that surgeons were surprised of Knighton's limp. That was the only hint I could pick up. But as of the identity of his accomplice, Kitty Kidd, I was so wrong! I thought she was Lennox Tamplin, simply because I pounced on the detail that in a certain picture, she had averted her face and shown only her nape. That was a red herring that I'm still digesting! I thought she must have dual identities. The whole Tamplin entourage was a dead end. Too much prose wasted for little importance.This 5 well earned stars is perhaps the strongest one. I would have given it more if possible. I do not remember which book has so much romance and class as this book. From now on, I think it's all downhill. In my youth I read most of the Poirot mysteries in French, in disorder. I remember little of them for most of them. There's the Mystery of the Orient Express, but that one I know of too well. I dare not choose a too pedestrian book. And I prefer Marple over Poirot. Agatha Christie is very confident in her plots. When she makes a character praise the denouement, it's an act of faith. I recommend this book to anyone who reads and has not read it.
    • 3/5
      A nice return to form after the execrable The Big Four. The Poirot in this book is recognizably the same person as the one in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In many ways this book is a novel interrupted by a murder and sidetrips into the world of international crime. The former is handled in the “ingeniously plotted” manner popular at that time and the latter is seems based more on the impressions Christie has picked up from watching films and reading popular fiction. Leave aside those elements and you have the unusually happy story of a companion who was left money and does not lose her head and man even get her man.The story of Katherine Grey has a flavour reminiscent of Persuasion and while we are following her slow flowering the reader may be distracting from the fact that Christie is also demonstrating that the only real function Hasting had in the earlier books is to watch and listen. Miss Grey watches, listens and if we read closely we realize that that was all Hastings really needed to do.
    • 4/5

       I really enjoyed this Hercule Poirot mystery.  The backdrop of traveling on a train made it more interesting because it opened a lot more possibilities.  Christie used this to her advantage, of course.  The characters were interesting, but I'll admit, I really didn't care for the person who was murdered, so it was no big loss.  Parts did seem to drag on during the investigation, most likely to show of Poirot's detecting skills, and that kept it from being a 5-star book.  However, I still truly loved reading this story.