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The Mystery of the Blue Train.
A wealthy heiress is found murdered aboard the luxury train to the Riviera, her famous rubies gone, and Hercule Poirot, a fellow passenger, takes up a case tangled in money, love and betrayal.
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Edition details
- Agatha Christie
- DotBooks
- DotBooks
- Paperback
- Standard white
- 259
- en
About this book
The Blue Train carries the rich and restless south toward the sun of the French Riviera. On this journey it also carries a murderer, and by morning a young heiress lies dead and a legendary ruby has vanished.
What it's about
The Mystery of the Blue Train sends Hercule Poirot into a glamorous world of wagons-lits, casinos and grand hotels along the Côte d'Azur. When the daughter of an American millionaire is killed and her priceless jewel stolen, suspicion falls across a field of suspects, an estranged husband, a charming adventurer, a mysterious foreign count, and Poirot, travelling on the same train, applies his methodical mind to a case complicated by passion and greed. A quiet young Englishwoman named Katherine Grey becomes his unexpected ally.
Themes
The novel contrasts glittering wealth with the loneliness and vulnerability it can conceal, and it turns on the corrupting pull of money and precious things. Christie examines unhappy marriages, disguised motives and the way a fortune draws predators, while the sunlit setting throws the darkness of the crime into sharp relief. Chance, coincidence and the observant outsider, embodied in both Poirot and Katherine, all shape the unravelling of the truth.
Why it still matters
Written during a difficult period in Christie's own life, the book nonetheless delivers the elegant plotting and evocative settings that made her famous, and its train-bound crime looks ahead to some of her most celebrated later work. As a portrait of interwar leisure and luxury it is richly atmospheric, and as a puzzle it rewards close attention. It remains a favorite for readers who love the romance of vintage travel wound together with a coolly constructed murder.
Who it's for
Ideal for those who enjoy classic whodunits set amid glamour and travel, and for Poirot devotees. Anyone charmed by the world of luxury trains, Riviera casinos and interwar high society will find this an atmospheric pleasure.
Sources and references
Verified references for this edition: Open Library, WorldCat, Agatha Christie on Wikipedia.
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The Mystery of the Blue Train
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