“Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10)”

“Uh, book club book.

That’s the explanation for why.

It’s pretty much what you’d expect, a whodunit with an ending that’s fairly interesting, although you could probably just skip to it and get about the same amount out of it. I DO have a theory that horror movie writers are going back to Agatha Christie for their plot twists, turns, and oddly-positioned stabbings, though. However, the weird machines that drown people in pig’s innards are a fairly novel creation that I’m not prepared to credit to classic literature.

Because I don’t want to spoil the whole thing, I thought what might be useful is to discuss the detective abilities of the main character, Hercule Poirot. And because it is my only cultural reference at the moment, I will compare his methods of detection with that of television detective and star of the Shield, Vic Mackie.

Here are some scenarios and how I suspect each would handle them:

SCENARIO 1: A BODY IS FOUND ON A TRAIN

Poirot: Would work his way through the different passengers and narrow things down to a most likely suspect.

Mackie: Would find the conductor of the train, ask him what he was hiding, then assault him, shoving a piece of the train’s coal in his mouth until he said everything he knew.

SCENARIO 2: A GOVERNESS IS SUSPECTED OF A CRIME

Poirot: Would gently question the lady so as not to put her on the defense.

Mackie: Would question the lady, then threaten to allow a sex tape of her to hit the streets if she didn’t start talking, pronto.

SCENARIO 3: AN ITALIAN MAN IS ACCUSED OF STABBING ANOTHER MAN

Poirot: Would consider this possible, and does put forth the theory that “wops” (his word, I swear) DO tend to stab (this is pulled directly from the pages, I SWEAR to you).

Mackie:…actually, pretty much the same thing.

As you can see, our detection skills have come a long way, baby.