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.
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 bears a striking resemblance to the Poirot short story "The Plymouth Express," in the short story collection Poirot's Early Cases.
[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.
The novel was televised by Granada in 2005, and was aired by ITV on 1 January 2006.
[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)
