To move between items, use your keyboard's up or down arrows. This page works best with JavaScript. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. Customer Review. Verified Purchase. The story picks up slowly, like a train departing from a major junction. However, to continue with the train metaphor, the reader gets carried away!
But there are two people who know. Yes β two people. One is le Bon Dieu β and the other is Hercucle Poirot. I found myself laughing out loud several times β something which I had experienced only with the books of P. Wodehouse and Stephen Leacock so far.
The Blue Train, which appears in the title of this book, used to take British holidaymakers to the French Riviera to escape the cold and damp of winter in the British Isles. The Calais-Mediterranee Express, he says, began running with coaches built with teak wood, as far back as The service was discontinued during the First World War, and it resumed with steel-bodied coaches with blue livery in the s. These coaches were Lx10 class, designed with ten compartments with just one berth in each, exactly as described by Agatha Christie.
At that stage, before the advent of air travel, this train had a reputation for luxury and it was patronized by celebrities. Next, they had to cross the English Channel by ship. Another train would take them from Calais on the north western coast of France to Gare du Nord, one of the seven major stations in Paris.
Finally, an overnight journey would take them to the south eastern coast of France, also known as the Riviera. Nearly a century later, all three of them are still running! This book, first published in , is the eighth novel written by Dame Christie - and the fifth featuring her famous detective Hercule Poirot. Peter, her pet dog, was literally born into the O. Surprisingly, the author herself did not have a high opinion of this book. Many people, I am sorry to say, like it.
