Ah, an Agatha Christie book. Are these formulaic, like the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift (which I’ve mentioned before) or do they follow a specific trend or are they mostly different from each other? I don’t know; I’ve never read anything by Ms. Christie before, notorious (but not in a bad way) writer though she is. I remember back when I was in third grade, there were Agatha Christie books on the shelf in our classroom, but I never deigned to pick any of ‘em up. Preferred the “Choose Your Awn Adventure” books, which I kept my place in by means of all my fingers (to return to decision points when my character died or the story just came to an end), later graduating to paperclips. I remember reading some of those from cover to cover, even, disjointed though the story turned out. But the books were action packed so reading in orded didn’t matter. Same thing as the movie Memento (which everyone pronounces as “momento” as in “un momento por favor”, but it’s not that, it’s memento, ya uneducated fools!). “Memento: A reminder of the past”. As in, a keepsake. The main character’s tatooing his important data on his arms so that he’ll know who he is when he wakes up each day.

Is this supposed to be a review of Murder on the Orient Express in which I’ve instead said virtually nothing about the book, just random circumstances which don’t even surround the book? Was that a rhetorical question? Anyway, it was good, and that’s all I have to say. The main character is the detective Hercule Poirot, who seems small and average and unassuming until he turns his powers of intellect to the mystery itself and solves it light years ahead of everyone else. (And do keep in mind, though, that “light years” are a measure of distance and not time, so that doesn’t really apply.) Anyway, PBS had a mystery series featuring Poirot mysteries, and now I shall just have to obtain videos and watch them.

This was a quick book to read, or would have been had I not been going at the pace of about one-half page per night before I fell asleep. That’s not to remark on the quality or excitement level of the book, which I assure you is up there on the charts. Rather, just the way my body works when it comes to sleep, information which clearly has no business being in a book review. And now since this review contains more meta-information than anything relevant about the book, I’ll stop. I recommend it, that’s about all I have to say.