Dreaming of the Orient Express – by Booktopia’s Christopher Cahill

If you’re going to dream, dream big.

So when my partner and I were throwing around ideas for how to spend our not too far off honeymoon my first thought was a trip on the legendary Orient Express.  As Caroline’s eyes lit up in excitement I knew in a heartbeat that her love for Agatha Christie was going to cost me. This love affair with one of history’s greatest crime writers began with the novel Murder on The Orient Express, which Caroline loved so much that her book case is slowly being filled with every Agatha Christie book ever printed.

This love for the books led to an interest in the many film and television incarnations of Agatha Christie’s two most beloved characters; Miss Marple and the world’s greatest Detective Hercule Poirot. It was the 1974 film adaptation that got me interested in the works of Agatha Christie and in turn the luxury train The Orient Express.

As much as I enjoyed Albert Finney’s interpretation of Hercule Poirot it was English actor David Suchet who really took my mild interest in the arrogant and eccentric Belgian Detective and turned me into a huge fan. His performance as Hercule Poirot in its recent reincarnation is nothing less than a masterclass in acting. When he’s on screen as the slightly hunched and rotund Detective he simply disappears into the role. There’s no actor playing the role here, he is Hercule Poirot.

So it was with great delight that I came across an audio version of Murder on the Orient Express read by none other than David Suchet himself. The audio book format is sometimes a forgotten art form but as we listened to this excellent performance on a long trip to Mudgee I couldn’t believe the quality of this one man production of the classic novel.

This is no mere reading of the book. David Suchet shifts bet ween his role as the reader to voicing every character in the book, both male and female.  It’s an astonishing performance as he shifts effortlessly between up to five characters at once and made me wonder what I was missing out on with the audio books in general. Long drives are seldom fun for all involved but listening to this performance made it an absolute delight.

As Caroline and I marvelled over what we heard all thoughts turned to our trip on the Orient Express. The idea of lounging around the bar car of this beautiful train, cocktail in one hand and a copy of Murder on the Orient Express in the other, is a dream we both now share.

Christopher Cahill is the Product Strategy Manager at Booktopia. You can read other posts by Christopher here.

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