The Mystery of the Blue Train is one of Agatha Christie’s detective fiction novels. Summary Of The Book This is the story of an American heiress, Ruth Kettering, whose father gifts her a set of precious rubies. In spite of his warnings to keep them in a safe place, Ruth takes the jewels with her on the Blue Train on her journey to Nice. Ruth is breaking free from an unhappy marriage to meet her lover. Hercule Poirot, the detective, and Katherine Grey, a young English woman, are also travelling in the same train as Ruth. Katherine had recently inherited a huge amount. She meets Ruth aboard. The next morning, Ruth's dead body is found in her compartment. She has been strangled to death. The case containing the precious rubies has disappeared. Hercule Poirot assures Ruth's father that he would help him in solving the crime and in identifying the killer. Poirot has to find out if the jewel theft and the murder are related. A dancer who travelled in the same train testifies that she saw a man leave her compartment around the time of the murder. Ruth's maid also says she saw an unidentified man in Ruth's compartment. A suspect is identified and arrested, but Poirot is still not convinced that he has the right man. He continues with the investigation. He asks Ruth's father and his secretary to travel with him on the Blue Train and tries to recreate the crime scene. About Agatha Christie Agatha Christie, born on September 15, 1990, was a British crime writer of short stories, novels, and plays. Some of her other popular books include The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder On Orient Express,Crooked House, Death On The Nile, and A Murder is Announced. She is famous for her 66 detective novels and over 15 short story collections. Using the name Mary Westmacott she also wrote romances. The focus of most of them are on the investigations carried out by characters such as Miss Jane Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Tommy and Tuppence. As per Index Translationum, Christie is the most translated individual author. Her books have been translated into a minimum of 103 languages. She is the bestselling novelist in history. Over a billion copies of her books in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign languages have been sold. Many of her short stories and books have been filmed, and many have been adapted for radio, television, video games, and comics. In 1955, Christie was the first to receive the the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. She received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play for Witness for the Prosecution in the same year. She died on January 12, 1976.