I listened to the audiobook of this and it was absolutely charming. it was a lovely way to take in the story (which funnily enough ended on a train journey), however I do think for further poirot readings I will try the reading experience as I felt slightly at times I missed out through the narrators use of fake accents.

THIS BOOK. OH MY. definitely a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Admittedly, the first ever murder mystery I have read, definitely not my last. I fell in love with the concept that the murder took place in a very compact but interesting location (the whole premise of there is a murderer among us is something I love), and that was enough for me, but this book really pulled something out of the bag. I felt a bit nervous that the mystery would be too obvious, or on the other end completely illogical in this conclusion, and this book offered something a bit less predictable in terms of tropeyness which was fab.

I did have a few issues with how badly it dated however. comments like "it cannot be a woman as she is too weak to stab like that" along with other mentions and even racial stuff at times annoyed me a bit as they relied less on evidence and more on assumptions and stereotyping which was a shame but I can attempt to forgive it in light of the novel's age. As well, I did guess some parts of the mystery a little early which seemed blindingly obvious to me, and instead of feeling smart it made me question why poirot as a undoubtedly intelligent man hadn't figured it out at that point. namely the handkerchief evidence, I had already made a correct guess very early on with the information already given about the characters.

I understand I'm reading war and peace at the moment, but it said many times that bloody woman was russian

DESPITE THESE POINTS however, the ending absolutely blew me away. It was deeply emotional and left me a bit teary which is not something I would expect from a murder mystery, but it was clear this one had so much heart. what really breaks the mould with this one is its lack of conventionalism in terms of the genre. Cannot wait to get my hands on more mysteries now!