The Mystery of the Blue Train

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The Mystery of the Blue Train (published in 1928) is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie, featuring her detective Hercule Poirot.

In Great Britain Penguin Books published a paperback edition (#691) of The Mystery of the Blue Train in August 1948. It cost one shilling and sixpence.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations 3 Trivia 4 ISBN

[edit] Plot summary

Poirot boards Le Train Bleu, bound for the French Riviera. So does Katherine Grey, who is having her first winter out of England, after having inherited a huge sum in a most romantic manner. While on board she meets Ruth Kettering, an American heiress bailing from a marriage to meet her lover. The next morning, though, Ruth is found dead in her compartment, victim of strangulation. The theft of her priceless rubies, and rumors of a strange man loitering near her compartment, send Poirot on a quest to find her murderer.

The novel's plot is based on the Poirot short story "The Plymouth Express" (much later collected in Poirot's Early Cases).

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The novel was televised by Granada in 2005, and was aired by ITV on 1 January 2006, starring David Suchet and Georgina Rylance.

[edit] Trivia

• This novel features the first description of the fictional village of St. Mary Mead, which would later be the home of Christie's detective Miss Marple. This, however, Ms. Anne Hart, in her 'biography' of Miss Marple, assures us, is not the same. This would perhaps explain why Miss Marple is never mentioned.

• Agatha Christie wrote this book around the time of her famed disappearance in 1926, and because of her unsure mental state at the time, she did not feel that this book was her best work.

[edit] ISBN

• ISBN 0-425-13026-6 (Hercule Poirot Mysteries; Mass Market Paperback; 2000)
• ISBN 0-8488-2138-6 (Hard Cover; Reissue Edition; 1999)
• ISBN 0-8161-4580-6 (Paperback; Large Print; 1992)

Agatha Christie
Detectives: Hercule Poirot • Miss Marple • Tommy and Tuppence • Ariadne Oliver • Arthur Hastings • Superintendent Battle • Chief Inspector Japp • Parker Pyne
Novels: The Mysterious Affair at Styles • The Secret Adversary • Murder on the Links • The Man in the Brown Suit • The Secret of Chimneys • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd • The Big Four • The Mystery of the Blue Train • The Seven Dials Mystery • The Murder at the Vicarage • The Sittaford Mystery • Peril at End House • Lord Edgware Dies • Murder on the Orient Express • Three Act Tragedy • Why Didn't They Ask Evans? • Death in the Clouds • The A.B.C. Murders • Murder in Mesopotamia • Cards on the Table • Death on the Nile • Dumb Witness • Appointment with Death • And Then There Were None • Murder is Easy • Hercule Poirot's Christmas • Sad Cypress • Evil Under the Sun • N or M? • One, Two, Buckle My Shoe • The Body in the Library • Five Little Pigs • The Moving Finger • Towards Zero • Sparkling Cyanide • Death Comes as the End • The Hollow • Taken at the Flood • Crooked House • A Murder is Announced • They Came to Baghdad • Mrs McGinty's Dead • They Do It with Mirrors • A Pocket Full of Rye • After the Funeral • Hickory Dickory Dock • Destination Unknown • Dead Man's Folly • 4.50 From Paddington • Ordeal by Innocence • Cat Among the Pigeons • The Pale Horse • The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side • The Clocks • A Caribbean Mystery • At Bertram's Hotel • Third Girl • Endless Night • By the Pricking of My Thumbs • Hallowe'en Party • Passenger to Frankfurt • Nemesis • Elephants Can Remember • Postern of Fate • Curtain • Sleeping Murder
As Mary Westmacott: Giant's Bread • Unfinished Portrait • Absent in the Spring • The Rose and the Yew Tree • A Daughter's a Daughter • The Burden
Short story collections: Poirot Investigates • Partners in Crime • The Mysterious Mr. Quin • The Hound of Death • The Thirteen Problems • Parker Pyne Investigates • The Listerdale Mystery • Murder in the Mews • The Regatta Mystery • The Labours of Hercules • Poirot's Early Cases • The Harlequin Tea Set
Plays: Akhnaton • The Mousetrap • Witness for the Prosecution • Verdict • Rule of Three • Fiddlers Three