Murder on the Orient Express A murder is discovered, and Poirot's trip home to London from the Middle East is interrupted to solve the murder. The US title of "Murder in the Calais Coach" was used to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel "Stamboul Train" which had been published in the United States as "Orient Express". After taking the Taurus Express from Aleppo in Syria to Istanbul, private detective Hercule Poirot arrives at the Tokatlian Hotel. There he receives a telegram prompting him to return to London. He instructs the concierge to book a first-class compartment on the Simplon-route Orient Express service, leaving
Murder on the Leviathan murder to start the action. The novel is set in 1878. The story opens with the murder in Paris of Lord Littleby, all seven of his servants and two children of servants. All were poisoned except for Littleby, who was bludgeoned with an ancient Indian artifact, a golden statuette of Shiva, which belonged to Lord Littleby and was stolen from his room, along with an old Indian shawl. French detective Gustave Gauche, in charge of the investigation, boards the passenger ship "Leviathan". Gauche knows that the murderer must be one of the first-class passengers, because one of the special golden