Once Upon a Train

A cross-country express, a fortune in embezzled cash, and two mismatched detectives tangled in the same case – here is golden-age comic mystery at its most irresistible, sparkling with wit and mischief.

Written together by Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer, Once Upon a Train throws the hard-drinking Chicago lawyer John J. Malone into the path of the redoubtable schoolteacher-detective Hildegarde Withers, each pursuing the same quarry aboard a speeding train. First published in 1950, the story was filmed that same year as Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone. Craig Rice – the pen name of Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig – was among the most celebrated mystery writers of her day, and the first to appear on the cover of Time magazine.