I’m a big fan of Agatha Christie and murder mystery books, and this one definitely did not disappoint!

If you’re looking for a festive read to keep you amused, you won’t go far wrong with this one. Whilst it definitely has that Christmassy feel, it is anything but! with puzzles, clues and red herrings galore, this adds a dark twist to the usual Christmas fare and will keep you on your toes. I love the homage to the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie, and her classic novel Murder on the Orient Express; this is a fitting nod to the original, entertaining and fast paced. You’ll rush through it just to find out what happens next!

I am a massive fan of Agatha Christie and o really this! It was like the orient express but only at Christmas! A great group of characters to make the story.

I was so excited to read this book as I loved the author's previous novel and this new one sounded like such a fun read. I did find it really gripping to begin with but unfortunately it just had too many coincidences and one in particular just seemed so unbelievable that it took me right out of the story. I felt like it never fully recovered after that point. I'm happy to suspend disbelief with crime and mystery novels but this one was just too far-fetched for me. I am grateful that I got approved to read it and I will look out for future books by the author.

Although it mentions Christmas, don't be fooled this is no cosy christmas read, there is a murder onboard a train set for Scotland.

In the circumstances, I have shelved it for now and will come back to it when I am in the mood for murder and not mince pies.

If you’re looking for a festive read to keep you amused as you stay cosy this holiday season, you won’t go far wrong with Alexandra Benedict’s second Christmas mystery, MURDER ON THE CHRISTMAS EXPRESS! With the added challenge of puzzles to solve and clues to find, this is not only a great Christmas mystery, an homage to the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie, but it’s an entertaining and paced read to pass those post-turkey hours!

It is Christmas Eve and when someone is found dead aboard the sleeper train to Scotland after it derails. It soon becomes clear that someone is murdering passengers. Former detective Roz finds herself in the middle of an investigation to uncover the truth.

I immensely enjoyed this book, it was a brilliantly fun read. I absolutely loved the Christmas theme.

Alexandra Benedict has done a fantastic job in creating characters with backstories that gave them so much depth. My favourite was Roz and I found myself really rooting for her to catch the killer.

The winter sleeper train setting felt like it was a character in itself, creating such a sense of danger and threatening the characters' survival.

The plot is incredibly clever and will definitely keep you guessing with plenty of twists and surprises.

This book felt like a modern day Agatha Christie and I would recommend it to anyone who loves mysteries.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Ros is desperate to get back to Scotland. Her daughter is going into labour and Ros has been saying for ages that she'll distance herself from work in order to spend more time with her family. She can't let her daughter down now. She has to be on that train. But traffic jams, delays and the pre-Christmas madness are making it very difficult.

However, everyone on the train is hiding something: from manipulative relationships to struggling families, they all begin to worry when the train is derailed and a killer is stalking the carriages.

Beyond the unnecessary number of topical references, there isn't anything wrong with this story. However, it's all been done before. Everything feels like it's following the blueprint for how to write a murder mystery with bonus points for Kate Bush references.

Maybe the memory of good, old Christie needs to be left in peace.

Another brilliant festive mystery from Alexandra Benedict! I loved the Christmas Murder game when I read it last year and now I’ve loved this one. It’s another festive themed who dunnit without being massively cheesy or predictable, it was exactly what I wanted this winter!
It had characters you love and characters you love to hate, a couple of brilliant plot twists and the best thing is that I had no idea who the murderer was and it truly surprised me - brilliant!

Murder on the Christmas Express initially appeared to have all the hallmarks of a contemporary and festive version of Murder on the Orient Express: a train working its way through picturesque scenery, a limited cast of characters who nearly all have something to hide and a seemingly impossible locked room murder. However, the story didn’t quite live up to its promise, as the characters were, by and large, unlikeable and much of the plot was far darker than the customarily cosy fare found in Christmassy crime fiction.

Recently retired police officer Roz Parker is desperately relying on the last train out of London to get her up to Fort William in time for the birth of her first grandchild. Accompanying her on the uncomfortable journey are an Instagram influencer and her reality star boyfriend, a disunited university quiz team, an unhappy family, a mother and son with cat trouble, and the long-suffering train crew.

The identity of the first murder victim is established from the outset, although it takes a while for the actual killing to occur, which allows time for the various characters to be introduced and Roz’s backstory to be established. A fair few of the train passengers appear worthy of being murdered upon first encounter, which is perhaps why they start being picked off, one by one, when the train gets stuck in the snow.

Roz is a good central character and a canny detective, although her motivation and decisions are a bit suspect at times. The main problem is, the majority of the other characters were so unlikeable that it was difficult to care if/when they were murdered. Also, the story featured far more dark and upsetting aspects than could be anticipated from reading the blurb.

I REALLY wanted to like this one but I struggled so much.

This was originally a DNF for me but then I think this was being read as a Tandem Readalong and I saw so many positive reviews that I wanted to see for myself but I just think it wasn’t the book for me for some reason.

I couldn’t get into it, which was the biggest issue. I feel like there were characters who weren’t needed and others with too much airtime. I found it difficult to remember who was who and I found the story a bit unbelievable (not the murder aspect, the friendliness aspect).

I know this was intended to have an air of the golden age about it and as I haven’t read any Agatha Christie (I know, gasp), I can’t make an informed decision on that. I can however, make a decision that, given the more serious latter part of this book, I don’t think a throwback to the good old days was what I felt when I was reading it.

Like some of the other books I’ve read this year, there are some really serious topics of conversation in this book and I feel like more time was dedicated to the “quizzing” than those topics. Obviously they’re triggering and not what everyone wants to read about but I think more could have been done, not even more words, just more in general. That is an entirely personal opinion and I still think the topics are relevant and need to be spoken about.

Also *spoiler* there is death in this book and I was laughing about how little a part that actually played. I don’t know if that was intentional, I think not, but it was making me laugh all the same.

I'd not read anything by Alexandra Benedict before but this book ticked a lot of boxes for me - a sleeper train, a whole load of shady characters thrown together and murder! Add in Christmas and I hoped for a lovely festive crime novel with shades of Agatha Christie.

The story opens with a death, before flashing back to the whole cast of characters boarding the train as they head north for Christmas - in this case not the Orient Express but a sleeper train to the Scottish Highlands that sets out despite weather warnings. Because of the reduced number of stops, the sleeper train has less passengers than usual - perfect for a murder mystery with a limited cast of characters!

And what a cast they are! Our main character is former Met detective Roz Parker, but she is joined by a 'University Challenge'-style quiz team, a celebrity social media influencer, a reality TV star, a stowaway, a not-so-happy family and others. Aside from Roz, there aren't many on the train that you'd want to while away a long train journey with - so it's a bit of a relief when the serial killer starts picking off passengers as the train gets stuck in snow!

The mystery is well-plotted and kept me reading. I enjoyed that there were plenty of twists along the way - especially as links between characters became evident.

I did come to this book expecting a cosy-ish crime novel in the vein of Agatha Christie - I know that Christie did touch on some horrific things, but always with a reasonably light touch. I found that 'Murder on the Christmas Express' didn't quite fit the model in that some of the themes were very dark, especially the plotlines featuring rape and domestic violence. This made the book feel a little uneven in places - not a problem for me, but perhaps not a comfortable read for those appreciating trigger warnings. There were also a couple of points where I found the revelations a little unbelievable.

Despite this, I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a festive murder mystery this Christmas - there's plenty to keep you guessing and a cast of (horrible) people to point the finger at! Armchair detectives will have a lot of fun and thank their lucky stars they aren't on a sleeper train hurtling into the snowy wilderness on Christmas Eve!

Thanks to NetGalley for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

we are aware of who is killed and when via a prologue in the first few pages of the book. We then go back in time to 23rd December and start to meet the cats of characters who will be travelling on the sleeper train to Fort William just in time for Christmas.
Due to heavy snow the train is delayed and to stop at a reduced amount of stations on its journey. This means that the number of passengers travelling on the overnight sleeper is greatly reduced. This allows the reader to learn about each small groups on board the train all of whom appear to hold secrets.
After the first body is found , Roz -a retired policewoman, sets about trying to solve the crime to assist the authorities only so she can get off the train asap. As the suspect list increases and the tension mounts the train is forced to stop due to the weather. The passengers start to worry about their own safety as the murderer must be amongst them and it appears that some of the groups are linked by past events.
How many times will the killer strike and will they find out who done it before the journey is complete.
With lots of twists, turns and surprises this is a real page turner and definitely an author I shall be reading again.

This mystery will remind readers of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. It uses the well known mystery trope of putting people together somewhere from which they can not escape and with a serious killer in the mix.

In this book, there is a disparate group traveling on the overnight train to Fort William. What a group they are! There is a (constantly on her media) instagrammar and her rather awful boyfriend; a group hoping to make it in a trivia contest; a recently retired police officer; a member of the CPS: an elderly mother and son who have a cat named Moustache; a young woman named Ember; train crew and more.

It takes a while for the first death to occur although it is acknowledged on the very first page of the book. More trouble and chaos will ensue before the train is again in motion following its derailment.

The book’s protagonist has a bit of a complex backstory. Readers will hope that she is able to make it to her daughter and new granddaughter soon and unscathed.

As a bonus, this book is peppered with puzzles. I think that these extras are trademarks for this author.

I enjoyed this title. Readers of locked room mysteries will enjoy trying to solve the case.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for this title. All opinions are my own.

Perfect for Murder on the Orient Express fans looking for a Christmas version. Although, don't expect the book to be less dark due to the Christmas element. It's still a nice Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery - a fun whodunnit! Highly recommended to anyone looking for a solid mystery during the Christmas season.

While the plot certainly fitted the brief (there was a murder at Christmas on a train) unfortunately this just didn't work for me. The story is all over the place, veering from cosy and festive to dark and brooding to completely illogical. There's some heavy topics discussed that I don't think fit well with the plot line, and weren't handled in a particularly sensitive way. The pacing is also really off, with too much set up without enough payoff,making it a bit of a slog to get through. Also, I couldn't connect with any of the deeply unlikeable characters.

Not for me.

This is not quite the cosy Christmas crime read I had in mind, it's a much darker and modern whodunnit, with a wide cast of characters, some likeable, some detestable! A locked room murder mystery on a train on Christmas Eve is a great set up for the story that unfolds, as we learn more about each characters back story. Parts of this were a difficult read, dealing with rape and domestic violence.

First I must say this is a rather long book that took me a while to read. I feel it could have been reduced and it would have been a much more enjoyable read.

The story itself was good and there was some mystery and intrigue but too much time was spent learning about all the characters in the book. Having said that the characters where good and enhanced the story (just didn't need so much about them to start with).

It was a bit of a full on and heavy read and didn't flow as well as I had hoped. It dragged on and I did skip through some of it so I could get to the more enjoyable parts of the book.

All in all and okay read but not a favourite!

2,5 ⭐

I enjoyed the author’s debut novel, The Christmas Murder Game, so I was really excited about this new novel, but I was slightly disappointed. It is clearly inspired by one of my favorite books, Murder on the Orient Express, but, first of all, I didn’t like any of the characters, I found them shallow and annoying, and I had trouble remembering them all. The pace of the story was also quite slow, and some of the themes were too heavy for the kind of thriller I expected. I started enjoying it a bit more in the second half of the book as the story focuses more on the investigation of the murder, but all in all I wasn’t really satisfied with this novel.

This felt to me to be a story of two parts, overall enjoyable but what I expected from the cover and start isn’t how it ended. It was cleverly plotted and well written with some unexpectedly dark themes and an ending that was for me, a step too far.

Well, this was an odd one. Imagine a mix of a cosy Golden Age Agatha-Christie-inspired murder mystery, which turns into some gooey romantic schlopp ('their eyes locked. It was the night before a new life') by the end. Oh and it deals with rape and domestic abuse on a wide scale, with some graphic descriptions.

A social media savvy update of 'Murder on the Orient Express' but all of the parts just don't fit together or work to make a satisfying whole. Worth a read but it tries too hard.

3 stars at a push, I'm afraid.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)