The Mystery of the Blue Train (Hercule Poirot, #6) in Reading the Detectives

May 19, 2024 Susan in NC rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, favorites, my-library, want-to-reread, christie, 25detectiveschallenge

2025: increased to 5 stars, for sheer enjoyment! Definitely a case of right book, right time for me. Great characters, knotty puzzle, and sheer fun following Poirot along as he investigates and interacts with old colleagues on both sides of the law! I’m glad I own the paperback and treated myself to the Audible narrated by Hugh Fraser, he’s one of my favorite narrators.

2024: 4.5 stars - I don’t think I’ve ever read this one, I don’t know how I missed it! I enjoyed the luxurious settings- the Blu ...more

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May 25, 2012 Becky rated it really liked it

I have gradually come to appreciate--dare I say even love?--Hercule Poirot. Even so, this one took three or four chapters to take to this one. At first I thought I couldn't even finish it, I just didn't like the flow of the first few chapters, introducing all these people (often nameless), the focus on a piece of jewelry, all this big build-up before introducing the main characters, etc. The story was oh-so-slow to start. But then at one point, everything started to click, started to move, and t I have gradually come to appreciate--dare I say even love?--Hercule Poirot. Even so, this one took three or four chapters to take to this one. At first I thought I couldn't even finish it, I just didn't like the flow of the first few chapters, introducing all these people (often nameless), the focus on a piece of jewelry, all this big build-up before introducing the main characters, etc. The story was oh-so-slow to start. But then at one point, everything started to click, started to move, and the novel became much better.

So what is this one about? Well, let's start with the victim, Ruth Kettering. She's in a very unhappy marriage. She's in love with someone else, her husband is in lust with someone else. (Well, to be fair, I think she's in lust with someone else too. Except I think she honestly thinks that that lust is love, while I think the husband, Derek, is more realistic and realizes it is what it is.) Her affair being somewhat mostly private and out of the public's eyes, his not so much, he's "in lust" with an exotic dancer. Ruth's father is an American millionaire, and he is pressuring her to divorce her husband and start over. When the novel really opens, he's gifting her with some very, very, very expensive and oh-so-rare jewels, rubies. These are gems with a PAST and then some. Several weeks, if not several months, go by, and the novel next opens with a train trip. Ruth is on her way to meet her lover, her husband and his mistress just happen to be on the same train, and yet supposedly no one knows this. But perhaps it isn't right to start with the victim? Since the main character, the main character besides Poirot, is a young woman who's just recently inherited money. Katherine. This is truly more her story. For she's on the train as well, and she met Ruth just hours before her death. The two took a liking to one another, and Ruth confided in her a good deal. Even told Katherine how uneasy she felt about this trip, like something horrible was going to happen to her.

It was easy to see why Katherine was so likable. It really was. This Agatha Christie novel was good. I wouldn't say that it's one of the best, best, best mystery novels ever. Christie wrote so many, so many GREAT novels, that it would be hard for this one to make the top five or top ten, but it is definitely a good novel. I liked it!!! ...more

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Jul 20, 2023 Marcella rated it liked it

Shelves: 2023-75-book-challenge

""So like the French,” murmured Mr. Evans. He was one of those staunch patriotic Britons who, having made a portion of a foreign country their own, strongly resent the original inhabitants of it."

We get to spend a little time on the Riviera, gambling and staring at the blue sea while wealthy people behave like cads. It's less rocky than some of the earlier Poirot stories I've read so far this year in my journey through the series, but not terribly memorable either. It feels like Christie has rea ...more

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Mar 04, 2009 Laura Anne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, travel-planes-trains-autos-boats, france

2025 Series Re-read: It was a bit too padded, but I am fond of Katherine and the Tamplin family. Not as bad as its detractors (including Christie) have described it, but not quite as good as I remember from my childhood.

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