I’ve always been enamored of trains in old movies. It’s probably the gloss of Old Hollywood and was never as glamorous as it appears to be on-screen, but train travel looks so romantic. Plush cabins, sleeper cars, seated meals, large windows with a rolling view. A private cabin where you can quietly read a book…
Rather than a “locked room” mystery wherein the victim is found dead in a room where no one could have gotten in or out, Christie traps everyone together on a snowbound train. The victim, the suspects, and the detective are all stuck in the “locked room.” The new movie version, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh is problematic but it was much better than the trailers led me to believe.
Comparisons to Gone Girl are inevitable so let me start there. Yes, this is a suburban suspense, with a (perhaps) unreliable narrator at the heart of it. She views her old home from the commuter train everyday. My head leaning against the carriage window, I watch these houses roll past me like a tracking shot in…
This book is such a treasure. Like many people, I have a nostalgia for vintage train travel (even though I never experienced it). I even got married at an old roundhouse. There is something very elemental about iron, steam, fire and coal getting you from one place to another. The Railwayman’s Pocketbook is a compendium…
This book is almost like a work of fan fiction. What if this cast of characters were suddenly let loose in an unlikely scenario. Queen Elizabeth II, despondent and full of wanderlust, embarks on an unusual trip. Constantly surrounded by assistants, servants, schedules, and protocol, she is looking to reconnect with simpler days.…