‘Murder on the Christmas Express’ by Alexandra Benedict

Genre: Adult Fiction – Crime/Mystery

Published: 2022

Format: eBook

Rating: ★★★

I was intrigued by the premise of this book – passengers stranded on a derailed train and being picked off one after another. The passengers also had more connections to each other than you might necessarily think. It tries to be reminiscent of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ by Agatha Christie but falls short.

However, the first murder didn’t happen until about 40% of the way through; the beginning was taken up with giving backgrounds of the different characters. I did get confused throughout by the sheer number of characters and who was who. When the killer was revealed, I had to go back through to check the connections. It’s kind of a mix of cosy crime and a mystery or thriller so I don’t think it actually falls into either category. It’s a little confused in terms of the tone of the story in this way.

It was an easy read if you don’t mind about characters mixed up, and I don’t think you need to know the characters from each other really as none truly come to life. The only character I did really have time for was Roz, though I think the victim did have the potential to be an interesting character. I did like the style of writing generally, though I could have done without the name-dropping.

Plot spoiler and trigger warning – rape, often graphically described. This makes it often difficult to read and is worth a warning as I was a little taken aback.

A quick read, as long as you’re not too bothered about keeping all the characters in line, though it is more along the track of mystery thriller rather than cosy crime, which is what I expected from this book when I first picked it up.