Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express is an iconic murder mystery novel, and for good reason. The novel quickly moves along and keeps the reader on their toes as the mystery of the murder is slowly unraveled. As if that wasn't enough, the novel ends with a choice to the passengers of the true account of the murder. I want to take some time to explore how this choice mirrors how we view our new year’s resolutions.

Let’s first dive into a review of the novel, as this is a review post first and foremost. As mentioned before, Christie’s writing style is quick and fluid. It wastes no time setting up the location, setting and characters involved before thrusting it all into the plot. Every page brings a new twist and turns the story in a new direction. The characters in the novel are iconic and distinct.

Her descriptions of characters are memorable, dropping breadcrumbs and hints that eagle-eyed readers can spot to help them solve the mystery along protagonist Hercule M. Poirot. Speaking of, he along with the other characters has his own unique personalities and quirks. This helps to keep the interest of readers, as each character brings their own perspective to the story and the mystery.

This is the only novel from the Poirot series I’ve read but am eager to read others after finding him to be idiosyncratically captivating. More so once he solved the mystery and put, what I think is the novel’s best moment to the group at large

Without spoiling it, I’ll just say the choice presented to the passengers of the true account of the murder is not just interesting in light of the novel itself but also thematically on what it says about human nature. This choice serves as a metaphor for how we can choose what our lives will be like in the new year. It emphasizes the power of choice and how we can choose to make our own paths and stories.

Every year many people around the world aim to take a fresh stance in the new year by creating resolutions, or aspirations of what they want their life to be like. In a way, people who do this, can analyze the array of what their life would be like if they took path a vs path b and so on. We shape our reality to what makes sense for us (whether that occurs or not is another matter). So in that same way the Poirot puts the two ways the murder could have occurred, he forces that introspection into reality to the passengers of the Orient Express.

Which do they end up choosing? Which will resolution will you end up choosing?