Book Club Ideas for "Murder on the Orient Express" {by Agatha Christie}

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We read another book by Agatha Christie a couple of years ago And Then There Were None. We loved it so much and had so much fun putting a creepy book club night together that we wanted to read another one of her books. So we picked her second most famous book,

Murder on the Orient Express!

We've already posted our Food Ideas and Menu and our Book Review so be sure to check those out as well.

Jen was our moderator and host for this book club and I know she spent MONTHS preparing for us to have a memorable night. A couple of weeks before book club Jen emailed each of us our character bio. She put together a dinner murder mystery and each of us had a character to play. We didn't know our exact roles in the dinner mystery until we arrived that night.

Food Ideas for "Murder on the Orient Express" {by Agatha Christie}

We had SO much fun reading and discussing Murder on the Orient Express, we highly recommend reading it for yourself or in your book club! I promise, you WON'T guess who the murderer is!

Book Review for "Murder on the Orient Express" {by Agatha Christie}

BOOK TITLE : Murder on the Orient Express                                

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie

PUBLISHER: Collins Crime Club 

NUMBER OF PAGES: 322

YEAR PUBLISHED: 1934

READING LEVEL: Adult

GENRE: Crime, Fiction, Mystery 

	Our group rating was...

"And Then There Were None" {by Agatha Christie} Book Club Ideas

10 Little Book Club girls 

invited to discuss a book and dine,

They got more than they bargained for 

and then there were Nine...

Rain drummed the window pains like the bony fingers of a legion of persistent specters.  Wind howled around the derelict mansion, and thunder bellowed in the ashen sky.  

Dearth Island was besieged by a tempest.  We little book club girls were about to be tossed on the angry waves, set adrift into a nightmare fresh from the pages of our books.

Ten odd little figurines grimaced from atop the mantelpiece of the dining room.

Huddling together in the drab, dusty, room, we ate our cheery dinner.  There were so many scrumptious delights to enjoy.  

This Cinnamon sugar churro cake was especially divine,
Download the recipe HERE.

We had almost forgotten the foreboding gloom of the evening, when suddenly...

all the lights went out and the house was plunged into complete darkness!

What had just happened?  Did someone forget to pay the electric bill?

Or was this a horrible coincidence of fate???

CRASH

CLATTER

SCREAM!

A loud, deep, deliberate voice sliced through the blackness.

The Voice filled the room and chilled us to the core.

Listen to The Voice and its instructions HERE

We were left in a vast void of spine-tingling silence.  We procured a flashlight.

As the beam of light searched the room,  we were greeted with a shock!

A giant poster depicting a nursery rhyme regarding the gruesome fate of 10 Little Book Club Girls had appeared above the fireplace!  Terror crept into our voices as we read aloud its sing-song verse.

Upon further investigation, we noticed that one of the 10 little dolls was missing as well.

A deadly game was unraveling, and a killer was among us!

The cacophony of confused, fearful voices rose and fell like frantic waves crashing on jagged rocks.  Light flashed, cutting through the din, as every cell phone screen lit up in unison.  

The message: a picture text.  

The words: "Help me."

Kellie, had just sent us all a text.  She had been in the room before the lights went out, hadn't she?  Her absence quickly became apparent to our shocked faces.  

Could we find her in time???

The pedals of the piano led us to the drawing room, where, Kellie's lifeless body lay half underneath the covered piano.  She was beyond help now.  She had been slashed up and down, and the gruesome gashes that tore into her skin looked like...PAPER CUTS!

After scanning the drawing room for any possible clues, we reconvened in the dining room, and noticed something that had not been there before.  A message in a bottle in the center of the table.  The message delivered with it a sinking feeling that we had entered a bad dream from which we would never wake.  We had all come to discuss a murder mystery, not become involved in one.  And yet, here we were, tangled in this macabre web of a sinister intellect.

So many murder weapons....

We read the note aloud, and a clue was given in the form of an anagram.

The answer to the anagram is: KITCHEN STOVE

Lisa solved it in a snap!  She ran to the kitchen stove, threw open the oven, and let out a scream of disgust and terror.  Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" lay inside the gaping oven like a bloody, undercooked book casserole.  

Obviously the murder weapon.

But what's this?!  Lisa found an inscription on the inside the book, 

"If lost, please call xxx-xxx-xxxx."

Lisa's shaking fingers quickly dialed the number.  

In the silence we heard the telltale buzz of a cell phone, and that phone belonged to book club member...Robin!

(this is not Robin but you get the idea)

In a flash of indignant rage, Robin proceeded to confess to her devilish deeds:

"I did it!  I sliced Kellie to ribbons with the very book that she borrowed from me and so thoughtlessly didn’t return in time for book club! Tonight I intended to get even with all of you! I’m tired of loaning my books to all of you book club girls, and not getting them back!"

Let this be a lesson to us book club girls:

After a book should a friend inquire,

Tell her "NO!" and quell that fire.

For loaning out a book so precious,

Can leave one plotting revenge most vicious.

In solving the mystery, Lisa won:

-a hardback copy of "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie

-fingernail polish in a skull-shaped bottle

-& murder weapon earrings (bow & arrows)

Download your own bookmark for yourself or your book club
choose from the 5 options or download all five on one page.

1. Bloody page
2. Island at night
3. Red cover
4. Black noose
5. Red noose
6. All bookmarks 

Read our star rating and full book review HERE

"And Then There Were None" {by Agatha Christie} Book Review

 

TITLE OF THE BOOK: And Then There Were None

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie

NUMBER OF PAGES: 320

YEAR PUBLISHED: 1939
PUBLISHER: St Martin's Griffin

GENRE: Classic Murder Mystery

BOOK SUMMARY: 

Ten people are invited to a mansion on the remote Soldier Island (Ni*** island, and Indian Island in earlier editions), by a mysterious host. When the guests arrive by boat, they are told that the host is not there, but will arrive soon. They notice a copy of the nursery rhyme, Ten Little Soldiers (Indians) hanging on the wall of their bedrooms. After dinner, the guests are all shocked to hear a gramophone recording accusing each of them of an unpunished murder in their past. There is a storm, making boats unable to reach the island. Events predicted by the nursery rhyme begin to come to pass, and as time goes on, suspicion and paranoia grow and civility breaks down.

OUR STAR RATING:

3.6 out of 5

 

OUR GROUP REVIEW: 

Angie moderated this book discussion, and started it out with a modified version of the poem in the book (ten little book club girls),and an enacted murder for us to figure out, which definitely set the mood for this book discussion! Download her brilliant and fun poem HERE!

 

(Some people had a hard time keeping all the characters straight, so you can find a helpful character list from Spark Notes HERE)

We discussed the theme of justice - did Wargrave act justly? Although technically carrying out justice, he is a worse person than his victims. What was Wargrave's motivation for the killings? - He wanted recognition of his cleverness, which is why he wrote everything down and put it in a bottle - romantic fancy and sadistic delight, a lust to kill, as well as a strong sense of justice. A desire to act instead of just judge.

 

Class distinction plays an important part of the story - Wargrave is thought to be trustworthy because he is upper-class, as well as a justice of the law. 

No one saw the plot twist coming. This was interesting as it violates the usual standard rule of the mystery genre in that it makes it nearly impossible for the reader to figure it out. LOVED IT!

 

It's interesting to re-read from the beginning  of the book again because there is some foreshadowing but the reader generally couldn't pick up on it during the first reading. The killers thoughts, interactions throughout - some have a double meaning. When the reader suspects it might be "him," he gets killed off. Foreshadowing without making it obvious is a hard thing for a writer to do.

 

(WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW)
The murders possibly seemed to be in order of how culpable Wargrave found the murderers to be. For example, the first death was Anthony Marsten. The deaths he caused were a result of his recklessness, but were not planned out or intended. The last death (other than Wargraves) was Vera Claythorne, who had planned for her young charge to die so she could get what she wanted.

We discussed how we felt about the characters - you are sympathetic to them at first, you want to believe the deaths that they caused were accidents. It is interesting how some are consumed by guilt, and some seem to feel no guilt at all. It is also interesting to see how the different characters react to being confronted with their crimes.

This book has been adapted to a play, as well as several film versions. In some of these, the ending is changed so that the last two characters do not die. How does this change the impact of the story?

The idea was brought up that maybe the ending would be more satisfying if you didn't have ALL the answers laid out for you at the end. What do you think?

AUTHOR INFO:

Agatha Christie, 1890 - 1976

 

Agatha Christie is considered one of the best-selling authors of all time, outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. WOW.

From the author's note at the beginning of the book, we learn more about her process in writing  And Then There Were None, and her feelings about it where she says,

"I had written this book because it was so difficult to do that the idea had fascinated me. Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I had made of it. It was clear, straightforward, baffling, and yet had a perfectly reasonable explanation; in fact it had to have an epilogue in order to explain it. It was well received and reviewed, but the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been." (from An Autobiography, by Agatha Christie)

 

This story has had a huge cultural influence, and has been the inspiration for many subsequent works.

From agathachristie.com:

 

"This is the story that made Agatha Christie the best-selling novelist of all time and is read the world over in more than 50 languages. “It was so difficult to do,” she writes, “that the idea had fascinated me.” It was an idea which is now the basis for many Hollywood horror films and has become a cliché to modern audiences, but it was Agatha Christie who was the first to do it and so successfully that the story has become her most adapted piece."

 

To learn more about Agatha Christie's life and her literary works, go HERE.

To see our photo recap complete with recipes, printables and other goodies, click HERE!

CONTENT: 

*CONTENT CATEGORIES*	*RATING*
LANGUAGE/PROFANITY	Mild
SEXUALITY	Mild
VIOLENCE	Med/Heavy
DRUG/ALCOHOL USE	Mild
INTENSE/SCARY SCENES	Med/Heavy