Murder on the Orient Express: From Aleppo to the Snowdrift

The story opens in Syria. At five in the morning Hercule Poirot, who has just solved a case tied to a scandal in the French army, is at Aleppo station, and he boards the Taurus Express for Istanbul. That train ran between the two cities; its first run was on 15 February 1930. The pin marks the main station of the city.

Location precision: The story speaks only of the station at Aleppo; the pin marks the city's main railway station.

In Istanbul Poirot takes a room at the Tokatlian Hotel, meaning to stay a few days, and notices an American called Ratchett there. Then the concierge hands him a telegram telling him to return to London. He buys a ticket on the Orient Express, and over lunch in the hotel restaurant he recognises his friend Bouc, a director of the sleeping-car company who helps him get a berth.

Location precision: The novel names the Tokatlian Hotel but no address; the pin marks a building in Beyoğlu that carries the name.

Poirot decides to take that evening's Orient Express, but it is fully booked, which is unusual for the season. The Orient Express left Istanbul from Sirkeci, built in 1890 as the eastern end of the line and standing right next to the Golden Horn. Most of the story is set aboard the Simplon-Orient Express.

Location precision: The story gives no station name for the departure; the pin marks Sirkeci, the Orient Express's eastern terminus.

Visitor guidance: Sirkeci Terminal stands at the tip of the historic peninsula, right next to the Golden Horn.

At Belgrade Bouc gives Poirot his first-class berth and moves to a coach attached to the train, where the Greek doctor Constantine is also travelling. That coach is locked, and both men sleep there. Belgrade Main station has been an Orient Express stop since 1888. It closed in 2018 and has been repurposed as a museum.

Location precision: The story names Belgrade but not its station; the pin marks the old Belgrade Main station.

On the second night the train stops in a snowdrift near Vinkovci, in what was then Yugoslavia and is now northeastern Croatia; Christie spells it Vincovci. Ratchett is found murdered, his body marked by twelve stab wounds. The killer cannot have escaped through the heavy snow, so must still be aboard, and Poirot begins interviewing everyone on the train. A real blizzard near Çerkezköy in February 1929 held up the Orient Express for six days and helped inspire the novel.

Location precision: The drift stops the train somewhere between Vinkovci and Brod; the pin marks Vinkovci railway station.

Background, not on the train: the crime Poirot unravels is borrowed from life. On 1 March 1932 the infant son of Charles Lindbergh was abducted from his crib at the family home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey. Two years later Christie's novel had Cassetti kidnap three-year-old Daisy Armstrong for ransom. Both families were famous, the father a well-known pilot, and in each case a maid suspected of involvement took her own life; Daisy's nursemaid, Susanne, was found innocent afterwards.

Location precision: The Armstrong kidnapping is invented; the pin marks the Lindbergh estate, Highfields, the real case that inspired it.