Books with title Murder in the Calais Coach

The US title of Murder on the Calais Coach was used to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel Stamboul Train which had been published in the US as Orient Express. The Times Literary Supplement of January 11, 1934 outlined the plot and concluded that "The little grey cells solve once more the seemingly insoluble. Mrs Christie makes an improbable tale very real, and keeps her readers enthralled and guessing to the end."[6] In The New York Times Book Review of March 4, 1934, Isaac Anderson finished by saying, "The great Belgian detective's guesses are more than shrewd; they are positively miraculous. Although both the murder plot and the solution verge upon the impossible, Agatha Christie has contrived to make them appear quite convincing for the time being, and what more than that can a mystery addict desire?"[7] The reviewer in The Guardian of January 12, 1934 stated that the murder would have been “perfect” had Poirot not been on the train and also overheard a conversation between Miss Devonham [sic] and Colonel Arbuthnot before he boarded, however, "'The little grey cells' worked admirably, and the solution surprised their owner as much as it may well surprise the reader, for the secret is well kept and the manner of the telling is in Mrs. Christie’s usual admirable manner.”[8] Robert Barnard: "The best of the railway stories. The Orient Express, snowed up in Yugoslavia, provides the ideal 'closed' set-up for a classic-style exercise in detection, as well as an excuse for an international cast-list. Contains my favourite line in all Christie: 'Poor creature, she's a Swede.' Impeccably clued, with a clever use of the Cyrillic script (cf. The Double Clue). The solution raised the ire of Raymond Chandler, but won't bother anyone who doesn't insist his detective fiction mirror real-life crime."[9] The reference is to Chandler's criticism of Christie in his essay The Simple Art of Murder.

Agatha' Christie's novel featuring Hercule Piorot, Murder on the Orient Express, was first published by Collins Crime Club in the United Kingdom in 1934. Later that year the book hit American shores as Murder in the Calais Coach. The American title was chosen to avoid public confusion with another "double-titled" book, Graham Greene's Stamboul Train, published in the USA as Orient Express. This title that was eventually phased out after Dodd & Mead's original hardcover editions and a paperback edition went out of print. The novel was adapted into a feature film in 1974.