Celebrate the Hollywood Film with a 99c Mystery

A Hollywood Flick, A Floppy Moustache, a Discount Mystery…

By now most of you will have had the chance to watch Kenneth Branagh's version of the great Agatha Christie classic Murder on the Orient Express. Released at the end of last year, it stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Branagh himself in the lead role.

That was his first mistake.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the flick (hell, I'll take Brad Pitt in the lead role if it means more Agatha Christie stories brought to life on the big screen) but I kept thinking Kenneth had forgotten who he was playing and morphed into Sherlock Holmes. 

It all came down to that moustache. What was that about?! Perhaps Branagh's hair and make-up people hadn't read any of the books, or perhaps he was bringing his own interpretation to the part, but that was no Poirot mo!

Everybody knows Poirot's mo is… well… slick and neat! As Captain Hastings says, himself, in his very first description of his friend: "His moustache was very stiff and military." 

As Agatha Christie writes in the original Murder on the Orient Express: "…a small man muffled up to the ears of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped nose and the two points of an upward-curled moustache."

In contrast, Branagh's was wild and bushy and left him looking more like an Austrian beer maker than everybody's favourite, finicky Belgian detective.

But I forgive him. Really I do. While the mo is a pivotal part of the original character (and David Suchet pulls it off best, IMHO), I honestly don't mind that someone is bringing a fresh interpretation to an old character because, er, that's kinda what I do, isn't it?

My own special twist…

My Agatha Christie Book Club series is all about adding a fresh and modern perspective to an old classic. While I'm not actually rewriting any of Dame Agatha's stories (blimey, I wouldn't dare!), I do look at them afresh and celebrate the (sleuthing) wisdom within. And in my second Agatha Christie Book Club, Murder on the Orient (SS), I do just that, adding whispers of the original mystery in this very modern account of a series of murders that take place on a replica steamship called the SS Orient (a real-life ship, by the way).

With that in mind, I want to stop my griping and celebrate the movie by offering you a discount ebook! Yep, that's right, I'm dropping the price of my second Agatha Christie Book Club cozy mystery to just 99c! You can grab your copy here:
* Amazon kindle
* Apple iBooks
* Barnes & Noble nook
* kobo
* Smashwords and elsewhere

And if you haven't seen the movie, please don't let me put you off. Suspect styling aside, it really is a cinematic delight. How can it not be? It's based on an Agatha Christie plot.

Happy (discount) reading everyone.
xo Christina

This Black Friday the real SS Orient is back from the dead!

Today I'm donning my finest boat shoes and popping on the captain's hat for the official launch of the Agatha Christie Book Club 2—Murder on the Orient (SS). But don't worry! 

I'm not going to bore you senseless with a sales pitch here—check out your preferred e-retailer for that. Instead I'm going to remind you where I got the idea from and how true synchronicity works, courtesy of my Author's Note from the book (see below). 

I think the backstory is almost as fascinating as my novel. Damn, there I go with the sales pitch…

S.S Orient (5,390 tons),  Orient liner which made its maiden voyage to
                     Australia in 1879. From a lithograph after T.G. Dutton at the National
                     Maritime Museum, Greenwich, U.K. (PAH5285) 

Murder on the Orient (SS): A Note from the Author

"When I started conjuring up the second adventure for the Agatha Christie Book Club I wanted to take them on an exotic journey à la the infamous Orient Express, one of my favourite Poirot settings, and began looking around for ideas.

Boy, did I get lucky!

In the early 1900s, there really was a classic steamship called the SS Orient that sailed between London and Sydney, via the Suez Canal and The Cape. According to my research, it was a gleaming ship, full of glamorous characters and several rather dubious deaths, and proved a perfect fit for my book club friends. While I have changed some details, including the original itinerary, for the sake of this contemporary plot, much of the information about the ship is authentic and can be found in the bibliography.

Sadly, however, the SS Orient has not been recommissioned nor is there a real-life replica floating about as I have imagined here, but an author can dream can’t she?

And a book club can jump aboard for the ride…

Bon voyage!"

For more info on the (real) SS Orient 

 

The SS Orient Story by Roy Clifford and Dave Knight

http://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/404048

http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=1263

http://www.bogstown.com/ss-orient/

Happy reading, everyone, and I hope you enjoy the voyage.

xo Christina