"Some day, who knows, you might be in the thick of things," he went on. "It is all chance." "I don't think it is likely," said Katherine. "Nothing of that kind ever happens to me." He leaned forward. "Would you like it to?"
- Poirot and Katherine Grey in The Mystery of the Blue Train, p. 75
The Sum of It:
Even though this one says "A Hercule Poirot Novel" on the front, I found myself wondering if Poirot was ever going to turn up, because it's about 70 pages before Poirot comes into the tale. The seeming main character of this book, initially, are some rubies that used to belong to Catherine the Great. As the book begins, the glorious stones are purchased from Boris and Natasha (I'm pretty sure) by an American. Our American, Mr. Van Aldin, has bought them for his daughter, Ruth, the apple of his eyeballz. He gives them to her on the eve of her trip via the glamorous Blue Train to the French Riviera, along with a caution (put these priceless jewelz in the bank rather than risk having them stolen and you murdered on the train puh-lease) and a demand (divorce your good-for-nothing, money-grubbing, philandering husband Derek and don't do anything to jeopardize your case).
Even though this one says "A Hercule Poirot Novel" on the front, I found myself wondering if Poirot was ever going to turn up, because it's about 70 pages before Poirot comes into the tale. The seeming main character of this book, initially, are some rubies that used to belong to Catherine the Great. As the book begins, the glorious stones are purchased from Boris and Natasha (I'm pretty sure) by an American. Our American, Mr. Van Aldin, has bought them for his daughter, Ruth, the apple of his eyeballz. He gives them to her on the eve of her trip via the glamorous Blue Train to the French Riviera, along with a caution (put these priceless jewelz in the bank rather than risk having them stolen and you murdered on the train puh-lease) and a demand (divorce your good-for-nothing, money-grubbing, philandering husband Derek and don't do anything to jeopardize your case).
We ALSO meet a bunch of other characters, including;
- Mirelle, the exotic dancer with whom said philandering husband Derek is doing his philandering
- Lady Katherine Grey (the actual main character, besides the rubies) who is a classy lady with beautiful grey eyes despite being elderly and decrepit at the beyond-her-prime-age of 33 and who has also just inherited loads of money from an actual elderly lady for whom she had hitherto served as companion (her family was apparently nobility of some kind but sans money to this point.) Fun fact: She lives in St. Mary Mead! No mention of Marple though.
- Lady Tamplin, Katherine's cousin, who is wealthy (but not as wealthy as she'd like) and lives on the Riviera with;
- her feisty daughter, Lenox, and Lady Tamplin's fourth husband, the young and dashing (if dense) Charles Evans (aka Chubby) #cougartown
- Major Knighton, who is Mr. Van Aldin's secretary and a war veteran
- A Greek jewel dealer named Mr. Papopolous and his daughter Zia.
ANYWHO after Lady Katherine inherits the dollars, she goes to London to buy some clothes befitting her new income and to embark on her first world travels, to visit Lady Tamplin, et al, on the French Riviera (via the Blue Train). She keeps bumping into a handsome fella around town, and feels a premonition about him and unbeknownst to her he's also headed to the Riviera #meetcute. On the train, Katherine befriends Ruth over lunch, where Ruth bares her soul due to Katherine's nice eyes and says she's feeling super torn because her dad wants her to file for divorce and made her promise she wouldn't mess that up but also she lied to dad about being engaged in an affair with Le Comte de la Roche, a fancy-man from France who her dad already made her break up with once before she married Derek (dad thinks he's a scoundrel).
Because it's the early 20th century and Katherine doesn't have headphones she can put it to deter people from telling her their life stories on trains, she listens kindly and gives advice only to not really see Ruth again for the rest of the trip. Once they arrive in the Riviera, it turns out that Ruth is #MURDERED and Katherine and another traveler with whom she has chatted, HERCULE POIROT, are immediately embroiled in the mystery. No more spoilers, but the rest of the book is mostly concerned (obviously) with trying to determine who killed Ruth, where the eff her rubies went, whether Derek is a bad guy or a good guy, and what Katherine is thinking. There's lots of being in love, tennis matches, Poirot bragging about how awesome he is, casinos, and glistening blue waters.
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| Agatha & Archie early on (from the Autobiography) |
So, in her autobiography, Agatha said of The Mystery of the Blue Train: "Really, how that wretched book ever came to be written, I don't know...I had no joy in writing, no elan...I assumed the burden of a profession which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you are writing, and aren't writing particularly well. I have always hated The Mystery of the Blue Train, but I got it written."
Aside from her little daughter, Rosalind, being distracting, there's one even bigger reason why writing this one was likely a struggle, and that's because Agatha wrote it in the Canary Islands, where she escaped with Rosalind after horrid Archie made her get a divorce because he was selfish and didn't deserve her #teamMax. Poor Agatha was trying to "go right away from all the things that had wrecked life" for her.
With that context in mind, it's interesting how sympathetically Agatha wrote the character of Derek, the philandering husband. When you read her autobiography, although she had a lot of sadness because Archie broke her heart, she also offers him sympathy and in some ways puts some of the responsibility for the demise of their relationship on herself, talking about how he could be so kind but he was just ruthless about getting what he wanted and that she really believed he hated hurting her #eyeroll. If she and I were friends at that point in time, I would have said to her NO WAY young lady, this jerk is the world's most selfish man and you cannot blame yourself for that (I mean he LITERALLY SAID TO HER as an explanation for why they had to get a divorce against her wishes: "I can't stand not having what I want, and I can't stand not being happy. Everybody can't be happy -- somebody has got to be unhappy." #archiesux #mansplaining #GOODRIDDANCE, it seriously makes me so mad. And Agatha felt like it would have been inappropriate to stand up to him and say "But why should it be me and not you?" #LeanIn).
Derek, the philanderer in Blue Train, not only gets described more like a bad little boy who can't be blamed for running around on his wife because she didn't really love him that much, there's a decent amount of sympathy sent his way by various characters including Poirot, and lots of ladies who love him seemingly regardless of the fact that it is well known he's been stepping out with a money-grubbing exotic dancer who pitches fits in public. This book kind of makes me a little sad for Agatha because she was having such a rough go of it and beating herself up a bit, but it's comforting to know that eventually dearest Max came along and Agatha got her confidence and her groove back.
-E.
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