Audiobook review: Murder on the Orient Express
No matter who you are or what you do — Murder on the Orient Express you've heard about before. Granted, you may not know the story, but none the less, you know of it's existence.
The description on the Audible page even goes as far as calling it “The most widely read mystery of all time [...]“. And I'm inclined to believe it.
The story
This story's fame is well deserved. It's so well written. The characters, the setting, the mystery — it's all first class. The book is engaging from beginning to the end. It never drifts off and never loses it's focus.
Technically this title #10 in the Hercule Poirot series, but that doesn't matter in the slightest. It was my first book in the series and I never felt like I missed anything.
The recording
The Harper Audio recording of Dan Stevens is first class. The audio quality is good with clear sound and little to no noise.
Dan Stevens meanwhile does an amazing job. The emphasis is always spot on. And the characters' voices are done very well. The voices are distinct and consistent; I didn't notice a single fault throughout the entire reading.
And the accents are great. One might argue that they are a bit over the top, stereotypical even. But that's how they need to be. Both stereotypes and prejudices play an important roe in this book. Even the characters themselves breach the issue a couple of times. So in that sense also, the voices match both the characters and the story.
tl;dr: Who should listen to this?
Absolutely everyone. Especially if you know the story as of yet.