The Rome Express

by Arthur Griffiths

A mysterious murder on a flying express train, a wily Italian, a charming woman caught in the meshes of circumstantial evidence, a chivalrous Englishman, and a police force with a keen nose for the wrong clue, are the ingredients from which Major Griffiths has concocted a clever, up-to-date detective story.

Arthur George Frederick Griffiths was an English author. His works include: The Chronicles of Newgate (1884), In Tight Places: Some Experiences of an Amateur Detective (1900), The Thin Red Line, and Blue Blood (1900), Tales of a Government Official (1902), A Bid for Empire (1902), The Silver Spoon (1903), The Passenger from Calais (1905), Agony Terrace: Some Secrets of the Cynosure Club (1907), The Rome Express (1907) and Thrice Captive (1908).

Genres: Mystery, Classics, Ebooks, Crime, Fiction

74 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1896

About the author

Arthur George Frederick Griffiths. Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons, Author of Memorials of Millbank, Chronicles of Newgate, Mysteries of Police and Crime.

Reviews

[Libros Prestados · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un "whodunit" clásico que, a pesar de su fama, aún no había leído.

Un crimen en un tren, una investigación llevada a cabo por la policía con la colaboración (a veces ostáculo) de uno de los pasajeros, pistas falsas, giros de guion... todo con un tono muy ligero y casi como de juego, que es tradicional en este género.

Me olí el desenlace porque una ya ha leído mucha novelas del estilo y todavía en el siglo XIX no se habían dedicado a poner tantas pantallas en la trama para despistar. Aun así, la historia es entretenida, tiene un gran ritmo, los personajes son funcionales pro están bien escritos y el misterio es tan clásico que se hace querer (sobre todo si esta clase de libros te gustan).

Para mí una lectura ligera ideal.

[Mark Stephenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1896, this is a fairly short fictional account of nine people aboard an express train sleeping car most of whom awake near the end of their journey from Rome to Paris to learn that one of their number has suffered death by a stab wound to the heart. Two are French businessmen, two are English brothers- a General and a clergyman, two are women- an attractive widow and her maid.The conductor, a Dutchman named Groote, has made trouble for the widow and her maid by insisting that the maid not be in the sleeping car too much as she has no sleeping car ticket. Two other men are aboard, one of whom is the dead man. The police inspectors arrive at the Paris train station, the Gare de Lyon, and present the reader with a delicious comedy of errors as they apply their rigid methods in an unavailing attempt to find out what happened. In the midst of this the General and the lovely widow, already friends for some months(having met in Rome) discover that they love each other. An artful blend of narration, misdirection and well-timed revelations maintain interest in this diverting story all the way to the end.

[Carlos Blanco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una auténtica delicia

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

God french people piss me off

[Sherry McWilliams · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this for free from one of those freebie sites. Can't remember which one it was. While reading this, you have to remember this was written in the 1896. I found it frustrating that the French police kept jumping from one conclusion to the next. It was on the boring side, but I continued to read it because I wanted to know who murdered the train passenger. Luckily it is a short story.

[Larry Piper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Odious John Bull B.S. Oh, and the Froggies are asswipes.

So, we have a train going from Rome to Paris. When they get to Paris, they find one of the passengers of the sleeper car has been murdered. Since the car is off limits to the hoi polloi, the murderer must have been one of the select few passengers in the sleeping car.

The French authorities, led by M. Floçon, the Chief, and M. Beaumont lé Hardi, instructing judge, investigate. But, for some reason, one of the passengers, Sir Charles Collingham thinks they are overreaching in their investigation, as well as misguided. He is after all, a noble Brit and knows a damn sight more than any damn Froggie. God is he an odious asshole. But for some reason, he ends up being more-or-less the hero of the book. WTF? Fortunately, this piece of crap was short. Not really what one wants to be reading during a week's stay in the hospital.

[Paola F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

En el viaje del expreso Roma a París, los pasajeros del coche cama se despiertan alarmados al descubrir que uno de ellos ha sido asesinado.
El culpable sólo puede ser alguien en el mismo vagón, por lo que el número de sospechosos es limitado. La policía investiga el crimen, con algunos obstáculos y pistas falsas, al final con ayuda, encuentran al culpable.
Es una clásica historia de whodunit, claro que hay que darle el mérito que fue publicada 1896, por lo que incluso quizás la historia motivó a otra muy conocida "Asesinato en el Orient Express", quien sabe....!

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining mystery listening 🔰😀 Arthur Griffiths

A very will written thriller adventure mystery novella by Arthur Griffiths of a train 🚆 from Rome to Paris where a murder takes place. The detectives are from Italy and France with help from an English General seen to be making a mess of the case but then it all comes together. I would recommend this novella to readers of mysteries. Enjoy the adventure of reading 📚 or 🎶 listening to books 🔰 2021 🏰🗼 💄

[Sem · Rating 2 out of 5]

It takes an English officer, or a moderately astute reader, to solve a crime when the French police - bless their little cotton socks - are at a loss. There was a moment when I thought that Griffiths was prepared to give French officialdom more than the usual amount of credit but it was not to be. Damn Continentals.

[Jj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Breve storia gialla. Un uomo viene ucciso durante il viaggio in treno Roma-Parigi. Il gruppo di passeggeri nella cabina viene interrogato dalle autorità francesi. Il poliziotto incaricato delle indagini diciamo che non è un'aquila e non è nemmeno tanto simpatico. Scritto nel 1896 è comunque una lettura piacevole.

[Jeronimo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining and easy to read, this short novel mixes the typical who did it plot with some mild romance and adventure. Surely at its time must have been a more thrilling story, and would be unfair to tag it as dull because of reading it more than 100 years later. Still it is full of cliches and simplicity, so despite having found it enjoyable, I steer to a two star award.

[Danielle Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know why I read this. It was free on Gutenberg and listed under detective stories. Luckily it was short.

Super predictable, which I guess is the worst thing you could say about a mystery!

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic mystery with a pretty interesting turn at the end...

[Paola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es muy rápido de leer, pero en mi opinión no está muy bien ejecutado.

[Steve Chaput · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like a second-rate Murder on the Orient Express with an almost identical plot.

[Rosana Adler · Rating 2 out of 5]

El misterio, sin ser original, no está mal llevado, pero la mayoría de los personajes resultan desagradables, y es difícil aceptar, aunque en el momento en que fue escrita la novela fuera lo habitual, el trato discriminatorio a las mujeres y a las personas de otros países.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really a classic mystery both in date (written in the late 1890s) and in style. Victim murdered in a sleeping car, no stops or outside access, and all the other passengers become suspects one by one. It was surprising how well this book held up. Fans of Agatha Christie will enjoy this, I did.

[Tori · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this for a free download on project guettenburg (<3<3<# project guettenburg!) So I thought I'd give it a shot

~

Hm... Well. In the world of mystery fiction you can generally boil down everything into two sub catergorys: Detective and Whodunit. The former focuses more on the detective, with fleashed out characters and more drama. The latter focuses more on the mystery itself, the little tiny clues and such.

This book fell in a terrible little line in between. I would not call it a whodunit, as the inticacies of the clues were very weak. There was no racking your brain to think where it all could point to etc. But it had no central character and no character development. It's not a book you would read for the characters at all.

So it fell flatly in no mans land.


<>HERE ARE SUPER BIG SPOILERS<>

But that wasn't the only problem: The twist was superly pradictable (whenever the body is beyond recognition in a mystery novel it usually means that it isn't who they think it is. Which is what emediatly came to mind.)

Also, worst of all, they had all this evidence that said the Countess was the murderer. But when they finally revealed it was the Maid and the Italian, they never cleared all that! So you're left with: "wait, what about the telegram the Italian sent her, and also the note, that said she was a part of it?" "What about the lace found on the scene of the crime that she was wearing?"
Therefore falling very very short.

[Adam Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

A murder on the express to Paris results in the passengers of the Rome Express being held in police custody while they endeavor to pin the crime on a culprit.

This was terrible. M. Floçon is such an idiotic detective that he ignores evidence out of hand and in the end has to be handed the solution to the case straight up, and even then refuses to do anything on it until the culprit pretty much turns himself in. He's so bad at his job that towards the end the perspective flips to someone else just so the story can get resolved on time.

As a mystery the whole thing is asinine and a waste of time. The final solution makes sense, and might even have been entertaining, if the story wasn't handled in such a stupid manner. There are a thousand ways it could have been told better. Maybe incompetent French police story were in vogue when this was written, but I really couldn't stand it. The only reason I finished it was because it was short.

Not a very good story.

[Aperna Deb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a nice mystery book at all. Murder occurs in a running train and one of the passengers must be the murderer. Reminiscent of the orient express, but of course this appeared 40 years earlier. The plot is quite thin. When the face of the victim was highly disfigured, it was quite clear what the denouement is going to be. Maybe this was a novely 100 years ago. This notwithstanding, the fact that a person can disguise as another person who has been travelling in a train for a rather considerable interval with other passengers is hard to digest. The writing is not great either; neither is the love story which springs out of no where for no real good reason.

[Atram_sinprisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Podría ser mejor, pero debemos recordar que aún estamos en 1896. Creo que de todos los misterios de habitación cerrada en trenes que he leído es el más temprano, así que ya tiene mérito tan solo por eso.
El machismo constante resulta bastante molesto. Sí, ya sé que en la época es lo que tocaba, pero no es necesario recurrir a él hasta para buscar culpables.

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining, old-fashioned whodunit. A fun read!

[Sangita · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fast paced read - a detective murder mystery, a simple one. The characters are pretty interesting though.

[Rachel Osborne · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mystery that takes place on a train en route to Paris.

[the Kent cryptid · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novella-length sleeping car murder mystery from the 1890s. It won't rock your world, but it kept me entertained on a plane trip.