Murder on the Christmas Express

Murder on the Christmas Express, by Alexandra Benedict, was a really wild ride, with Quality Street chocolates and a Christmas-themed pub quiz,  and also a body count with a disturbing motive! The novel is a bit confused, although it contained so many elements I enjoyed. The book goes back and forth between thoughts on life and aging, and a snappy Christie-inspired train murder. I love both a thoughtful literary novel and a locked-door mystery, but there were moments when the mashup gave me whiplash.

The novel takes place on an overnight sleeper train, just before Christmas, in snowy weather. I just love thrillers where the characters get cut off from civilization, and this begins with realistic inclement-weather warnings, setting us up for train delays and the locked-door part of the mystery. Ex-cop Roz has luxe sleeper tickets, a gift from her colleagues for her retirement, and she’s taking the train to Scotland where her daughter Heather is about to give birth.  I thought the older woman protagonist was going to play into the Miss Marple method of crime solving, where everyone ignores that nice old lady in the corner, but instead our Roz is bossy and unable to mind her own business. She organizes a pub quiz when the train journey is going well and organizes search parties when the mystery kicks off. I loved this character trait because it meant our protag was always in the thick of things, and on the rare occasions when she wasn’t, the narration moved to a new character and highlighted someone else. This sets up an action-packed investigation on the snowbound train, full of misdirections and surprising connections between passengers.

One of the train passengers is a social media star, a beauty influencer with millions of fans, sending live updates and making videos of her trip. I’ve really enjoyed the heightened intensity from characters maintaining internet stardom in thrillers like People to Follow, and the social-media clues in You’re Invited and Social Creature. It works so well here in Murder on the Christmas Express, plus the livestreaming and long-distance interactions add a twist to a classic locked-door mystery. It’s still a locked-door mystery, since the train is cut off by snow and distance, but there’s an interesting new layers of phones and fans.

There was a pub quiz question about the Latin name for a certain Christmas veg that blew my mind. I thought I recognized the scientific name in the quiz question, shut up, y’all, I’m cool and have interesting hobbies. But the answer was something else and I was sure that I wasn’t wrong… and the book had a bunch of obscure trivia (and real love of trivia puzzles!) so surely the author wasn’t wrong either… Then I fell down the absolute rabbit hole of how kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and broccoli are all the same plant species. Botany, you guys. Almost as cool as mushrooms.

In general, I enjoyed discovering the backstories on the train, but I still found the way basically everyone on the train is connected slightly hard to accept. I think this is because of the genre mashup — I bought that all the key players ended up on the same train in The Mystery of the Blue Train, because that’s how a mystery works! But here all the run-ins felt too coincidental, because of the literary novel elements. (Or maybe that’s my own eyeroll. To be honest, the classic Christies Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None aren’t my favorites because the murders are just too contrived. )

The ending was a bit too open for me. I can accept (and often like!) a more introspective, open ending in a literary novel but I like a neat ending in a mystery. This one ended up a little too vague on the mystery part (does that person take the fall? really? and they get away with that? and Roz supports that? huh). I think I wanted the mystery to snap into place, and leave the vagueness for Roz’ complicated family, personal and career life. Overall, this felt like a snappy murder mystery and a thoughtful lit novel, shoved into one book.