Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

One of the best books ever, no doubt. I really love it, there's always something special about the way Agatha Christie writes, and this one if fantastic. Probably everyone knows the story, it's been many years and films have been made. Protagonist is my favourite character Hercule Poirot!! I'm always happy when he's in the story :-D
In this story we're told that he's just solved an important mistery that we'll never know about, but a series of circumstances make so that he's forced to leave immediately to return home and he finds a place on the Orient-Express, which strangely for the time of year was already full, but he found his friend Monsieur Bouc, the director of the company, willing to help him in any way, so Bouc finds a place for him! Fate, a passenger will later say! Yes, that word should make readers think! He finds himself in a compartment where there is a French conductor, a russian Princess, an italian man, four Americans : a woman, a private detective, the man-soon-to-be-killed and the male secretary of the victim; three English: the victim's valet, a colonel and a girl; a count and a countess from Hungary, a German maid and a swedish woman. It's full of people of different nationalities and different social positions, quite a peculiar situation.
As soon as Mr Ratchett is killed, and Poirot is called to investigate, he immediately finds evidence that this murder is connected to an old case, and realises that the dead man's name was a fake, and that he really was Cassetti, the evil man that years before kidnapped a little girl, Daisy Armstrong, and killed her, and the details of it, the fact that during all the time the family was in pain, and talking about ransom and all that, the girl had already been killed, not only outraged people everywhere, but destroyed more than one life. Daisy's parents died, and so did her nursemaid. Cassetti was caught but being very rich somehow was able to leave the country and change his name and disappear for a long time.
Critics of this books that I've heard say that it's impossible to arrive at the solution because we have no way of knowing all the details and all the people that were connected with the murder of the little girl. Well, that's true, but I don't agree that it's impossible to guess the solution, on the contrary, many things can point you to the solution. Not a detailed solution, of course, but a good solution nontheless.
SPOILERS just a warning, in case you haven't read it and don't want to know who did it... but really, is this possible? How? Never read the murder on the Orient-Express??? Come on!
Anyway.
It's impossible for us to guess who was the driver of the Armstrong family, who was the nurse or the governess... not so impossible at all to guess that all of them must have had a connection with the Armstrong case, or that the german maid was the cook (Poirot can spot a good cook anywhere, and lets us know), that colonel Arbuthnot was colonel Armstrong's friend. We are soon told, as Poirot goes on with his investigations, that Princess Dragomiroff was very fond of the family. Of course, it's not like you can spot the truth two pages after the murder occurs, you must have patience, and follow closely the investigations, and the depositions, and doing so (if you want) it is very much possible to guess enough of what's coming, because first thing first you learn that no one else but the people of the compartment could have done it, that the conductor was with some collegues, that the American secretary was with the English colonel, that the Italian man was with the English valet, and in the same way the alibi of all the other passengers are linked to one another, they are all the alibi of someone else... but someone must have done it, so if you want to stop and think, it's not impossible to ask yourself a little question. Since it appears that you can't pick a single person out of the crowd, and that at least two people were involved, because of the different injuries, and it is impossible to pick two people without suspecting of the others that are offering them an alibi, then what if they were all guilty? That's what Poirot must be thinking without telling us, because we see him starting to revealing connections to the Armstrong family. We hear of the love that Princess Dragomiroff had for them, and we heard her say "Fate" with that certain tone, at knowing that Poirot got on the train by luck. At that point, it didn't surprised me when other connections to the family were revealed, although the first time I read it I didn't know that you needed 12 people to make a jury, and had never thought of connecting the conductor to the case. It is very well possible, especially when it looks like the countess didn't have any part in it, because there is noone else, but I had not thought of connecting him too. I must admit, I could never do what Poirot does, stop and think for some minutes with his eyes closed, I simply go on reading, so of course I had not thought of many things, until Poirot revealed them, I'm talking about their true identities, but this book is special for his finale because not only reveals the truth, and takes your heart away with the words of little Daisy's grandmother, it was like I could see her and hear her, and my soul was in pain, and really sorry that Poirot had find out , but Poirot reveals two solutions, the truth and a better one that will not send to jail anyone of them.

I think it's fantastic, absolutely fantastic.

ITA assassinio sull'Orient-Express