The Mystery of the Blue Train

We meet Hercule Poirot aboard Le Train Blue, bound for the French Riviera. What begins as an opulent voyage turns macabre when an American heiress is found dead of strangulation in her compartment and a famous ruby, “Heart of Fire” is missing from her belongings. The intrigue deepens as Poirot discovers a web of suspicion involving fellow passengers: Ruth’s paramour, the Comte de la Roche; her estranged husband, Derek Kettering; Kettering’s spurned Parisian lover, the vengeful Mirelle; and an infamous jewel thief known as “The Marquis.” With his legendary charm, élan, and powers of perception, Poirot navigates through the intricate puzzle to expose the elusive culprit who eludes all but Poirot’s discerning eye. This Warbler Classics edition includes a biographical note.

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) is the world’s bestselling mystery writer. Her much-beloved Hercule Poirot features in more than forty short stories and twenty-two novels. Over the course of more than half a century “The Queen of Mystery” wrote eighty crime novels and short story collections, nineteen plays, and several poetry collections. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in the English language and another billion in a hundred other languages.

“Nominally Poirot has retired, but retirement means no more to him than it does to a prima donna. Let a good murder mystery come within his ken, and he just can’t be kept out of it.”
—The New York Times (1928)

“The reader will not be disappointed when the distinguished Belgian on psychological grounds…builds up inferences almost out of the air, supports them by a masterly array of negative evidence, and lands his fish to the surprise of everyone.”
—Times Literary Supplement (1928)