April: An early work
My pick: The mystery on the Blue Train (1928)
Hello, lovely people,
Spring finally seemed to settle in and it’s one of those periods in which I don’t feel like reading. To put it this way, instead of staying in a cute warm coffee shop, cappuccino in hand, I’d rather take one to-go and head to the park. Work makes it even harder, during and after work, when you’re done, you’re super hungry, would wanna head home, but would also want a lemonade in the city center.
But alas, it’s my favorite time of the year: it’s too chilly for a tee, too hot for a sweater and gimme all the blooming magnolia trees now, please!
Some people. back in the day however, could afford to avoid the chilly winter months and head straight to the French Riviera, where most of this Christie novel is set. Despite all the other novels I’ve read so far, this one starts rather inconspicuously with a grim night in which people of a certain background are out to do business. A mysterious gentleman is involved and some stones exchange hands, stones of the precious kind. Soon after a different plan is set into motion, something closely related to those stones, but the details are rather fuzzy to the unsuspecting reader.
Rufus Von Aldin is an American millionaire who lives in London. His daughter, Ruth, married a while back Derek Kettering, who is “no good” in the words of several of the book’s characters. Their marriage is an unhappy one, Derek having an open affair with the dancer of the moment, Mireille. This puts both Ruth and her father in a rather embarrassing situation, until one day, Von Aldin suggests to his daughter that she get a nice and quiet divorce. Not only would Derek be bankrupt, she could be rid of her shame for good. He then gives her some precious rubies, one being the infamous “Heart of Fire” which has a history that involved Russian Empresses at some point. Bitter cold approaching, he warns his daughter to not take the stones to the French Riviera, given how infamous and expensive they are.
Divorces are never clean cut and turns out Ruth is no saint either. A while back, she was taken away from Paris from a lover/con artist absolu by her overly prudent father, and at present, the old flame was re-ignited, unawares of anyone. Only the desperate philandering husband caught on to it, of course, and used that sweet leverage to be the one with the last word. Dating famous dancers costs money and they don’t come in cheap either. Plus, potential destitution is no aphrodisiac. Money is something Mireille can’t do without, as she herself says. To continue sucking money out of poor infatuated fools, she even suggests that one might get rid of one’s spouse only to cash a big check. Tempting, but will Derek take the plunge?
Him, Mireille, Ruth, all board the same train. With them boards Katherine Grey, a woman who came in possession of a substantial inheritance. She’s rather naive and her inexperience shines through without her behaving foolishly. On the train, these characters mingle in one way of another, but at the end of the trip, Ruth is found lifeless, strangled into her compartment. Her maid is missing, her jewelry box as well. Some suspect even the lover, the Comte de la Roche, could have done it. It seems like everyone was going to the Riviera at the same time. It’s a rather interesting turn of events. Luckily, among the passengers is also Hercule Poirot and there’s nothing he wants to do more than hunt for a killer.
Just like the previous reads, this was rather short. Like the other Hercule Poirot novel, I read it a bit more slowly. The author likes to present the starting circumstances, insert side stories, show in detail every clue, every chat the detective has.
The strategy in this sort of novels is to place bits that seem completely unrelated to one another or the investigation and have them make sense at the end. It was such a shame that the book started so full of potential, with the mysterious aura of a secret exchange of jewels, to backfire gloriously at the end! It’s like the story stars well at first, then the author said “fuck it, I need to finish this!”, inserted three stories that made almost no sense, to proceed to the “aha” moment of the unveiling of the murderer…Unfortunately it was so rushed and ill-handled, I have read the most far-fetched ending I’ve come across in a while. And for this genre, it’s the kiss of death to have 80 percent of the book flowing harmoniously only to tank at the very end.
I blame the scope. You have London, Paris and The French Riviera. You have several characters who might have something to do with the murders, BUT only one detective, who cannot solve the mystery without assistance. Tying everything together and make it brief, how can there not be a nuisance?
Then come the characters. From all of them, I think the most realistic was Katherine Grey. Ruth was too calm, then too flustered for someone heading to meet her love. Mireille was the cliché over-the-top kept woman, going from one millionaire to the next. The family that kept Elizabeth under their roof, The Tamplins, are people who want to take advantage of circumstances at hand (including the biggest scoop ever). Derek was the big hotshot, then a pussy… The list goes on and on. There are so many people involved, that too little space is given to creating 5 central suspects (just an example) that are well built and developed. The real murderer is also terribly underdeveloped in my opinion, which might have something to do with the tanking 20 percent. You reach the final pages and you find out who the killer is, Poirot explains everything and you’re there like REALLY?! That’s the killer?! On what basis? Where’s the link? That drew me to thinking that something was really off somewhere in the structure of the plot.
The essential players, like the victim, the killer, the detective, the central plot, these should be set in stone. before anything else. Surely, you can do that in a more or less subtle fashion. We, as readers, are the puppets in the author’s show and if we don’t know what we’re looking at or towards what goal the action builds up to, the message will not be transmitted well. And it’s a shame if you have a good juicy story to share, regardless of the genre.
Hercule Poirot is more observant than I’ve seen him in my January pick. He appeared more laid back and less theatrical in this, but just a notch lower on the scale of what I feel is quite a lot. I still cringed while reading a couple of times, but by now I can understand and I am used to the artifice. We’re somewhere between the World Wars, in which riches and glam reigned, so a bit of haughtiness is not over the top.
But going back to Katherine Grey, I would have loved her and Lenox Tamplin to have had more space in the story, because they had the potential of being good side kicks. They are still stuck in an era in which women need to be pretty things, naive creatures, easily fooled, but in a way, they’re more of the transition characters towards what Miss Maple will become in other Christie novels. They both helped into their own way.
I also enjoyed the story until about 80 percent. The fact that she used scenes suspended in time from the very first page was something rather modern, perhaps influenced by the time in which the novel was written. Still, raving about that only…that would have been unfaithful to the truth. It wasn’t a bad read, it’s more like mneah, maybe good.
Due to my current mood, I’m very happy to see that the May theme is a short story collection. That means I’ll be able to read bits and pieces when I feel like it and sneak other books in.
I hope you have a wonderful day with a wonderful book! And if you’re ever interested, here’s some of the novels I have reviewed so far:
January was good for a Poirot initiation
DAYS OF A BOOK BLOGGER 
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