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The Mystery of the Blue Train

The Mystery of the Blue Train is a work of detective fictionby British
writer Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by William
Collins & Sons on 29 March 1928 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and
Company later in the same year.
The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition
at $2.00. The book features her detective Hercule Poirot.
The novel concerns the murder of an American heiress on Le Train Bleu, the
titular "Blue Train".
Poirot boards Le Train Bleu, bound for the French Riviera. So does Katherine
Grey, who is having her first winter out of England, after recently receiving a
relatively large inheritance. On board the train Grey meets Ruth Kettering, an
American heiress leaving her unhappy marriage to meet her lover. The next
morning, though, Ruth is found dead in her compartment, a victim
of strangulation.
The famous ruby, "Heart of Fire", which had recently been given to Ruth by her
father, is discovered to be missing. Ruth's father, American millionaire Rufus
Van Aldin, and his secretary, Major Knighton, persuade Poirot to take on the
case. Ruth's maid, Ada Mason, says that she saw a man in Ruth's compartment
but could not see who he was. The police suspect that Ruth's lover, the Comte
de la Roche, killed her and stole the ruby, but Poirot does not think that the
Comte is guilty. He is suspicious of Ruth's estranged husband, Derek Kettering,
who was on the same train but claims not to have seen Ruth. Katherine says that
she saw Derek enter Ruth's compartment. Further suspicion is thrown on Derek
when a cigarette case with the letter "K" is found there.
Poirot investigates and finds out that the murder and the jewel theft might not be
connected, as the famous jewel thief "The Marquis" is connected to the crime.
Eventually, the avaricious Mirelle, who was on the train with Derek -- with
whom she had been having an affair but, now spurned, is seeking revenge
against him -- tells Poirot she saw Derek leave Ruth's compartment around the
time the murder would have taken place. Derek is then arrested. Everyone is
convinced the case is solved, but Poirot is not sure. He does more investigating
and learns more information, talking to his friends and to Katherine, eventually
coming to the truth.
He asks Van Aldin and Knighton to come with him on the Blue Train to
recreate the murder. He tells them that Ada Mason is really Kitty Kidd, a
renowned male impersonator and actress. Katherine saw what she thought was a
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boy getting off the train, but it was really Mason. Poirot realised that Mason was
the only person claims to have seen anyone with Ruth in the compartment, so
this could have been a lie. He reveals that the murderer and Mason's accomplice
is Knighton, who is really the ruthless "Marquis". He also says that the cigarette
case with the K on it does not stand for 'Kettering', but for 'Knighton'. Since
Knighton was supposedly in Paris, no one would have suspected him. Derek did
go into the compartment to talk to Ruth once he saw she was on the train, but he
left when he saw she was asleep. The police arrest Knighton and the case is
closed.
The novel's plot is based on the 1923 Poirot short story "The Plymouth Express"
(later collected in book form in the US in 1951 in The Under Dog and Other
Stories and in the UK in 1974 in Poirot's Early Cases).
This novel features (as the home of the heroine, Katherine Grey) the first
mention in a novel of the fictional village of St Mary Mead, which had
originally appeared in "The Tuesday Night Club" published in December 1927,
which was the first short story to feature Christie's other famous detective Miss
Marple. It also features the first appearance of the minor recurring character, Mr
Goby, who would later appear in After the Funeral and Third Girl. The book
also features the first appearance of Poirot's valet, George.
The writing of this book (part of which took place on the Canary Islands in
early 1927 - rather than February 1928, as Morgan suggests - given that the
serialisation started on 1 February 1928) was an ordeal for Christie. The events
of 1926, with the death of her mother, her husband's infidelity, and her
breakdown and ten-day disappearance, had left a deep psychological scar and,
now separated from Archie Christie and in need of funds, she turned back to
writing. The story did not come easily to her and she referred to this novel in
her autobiography stating that she "always hated it". Her biography recounts
how the total number of words in the book were carefully tallied up, showing
what an ordeal Christie found it to be. It later had an effect on her in the midst
of wartime when, nervous that at some future point she might be in need of
funds and need a fallback, she wrote Sleeping Murder and locked it securely in
a bank vault for future publication. Curtain was written at the same time and
similarly locked away, but publication of this latter book would not be possible
until the end of her writing career, as it recounts the death of Poirot.
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The Mystery of the Blue Train was first serialised in the London evening
newspaper The Star in thirty-eight un-illustrated instalments from Wednesday 1
February to Thursday 15 March 1928. The entire first two chapters were
omitted from the serialisation and it therefore contained only thirty-four
chapters. There were slight amendments to the text, either to make sense of the
openings of an instalment (e.g. changing "She then..." to "Katherine then..."), or
omitting small sentences or words, especially in the opening instalment where
several paragraphs were omitted. A reference to the continental Daily Mail at
the start of chapter six (chapter eight in the book) was changed to "the
newspaper" to avoid mentioning a competitor to The Star. Three chapters were
given different names: chapter nine (eleven in the book) was called Something
Good instead of Murder, chapter twenty-six (twenty-eight in the book) was
called Poirot hedges instead of Poirot plays the Squirrel and chapter twenty-
eight (chapter thirty in the book) was called Katherine's letters instead of Miss
Viner gives judgement. The final chapter, called By the Sea in the book, was
unnamed in the serialisation.
This is the only major work by Agatha Christie in which the UK first edition
carries no copyright or publication date.

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The Mystery of the Blue Train

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