The Paris Express
a thrilling historical novel about a city on the brink and the people caught up in one woman's dangerous game
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3.0 • 4 Ratings
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Room and The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue takes readers on a thrilling ride through a simmering turn-of-the-century Paris on the edge of a dazzling future.
‘Ratchets up the pace until it’s hurtling along as fast as the train itself’ – Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
‘A zippy Agatha Christie-like thriller giving a taste of life in fin-de-siècle France’ – The Guardian
A woman determined to make her mark. A journey that will change everything.
Paris, 1895. One morning, a young woman boards the Granville Express with a deadly plan.
On the journey lives intertwine in explosive ways. There are the railway crew who have everything to lose, a little boy travelling alone for the first time, an elderly statesman with his fragile wife and a lonely artist far from home.
The train speeds towards the City of Light and into a future that will change everything . . .
‘An edge-of-your-seat historical thriller that I couldn’t put down’ – Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A French anarchist targets a passenger train in the taut latest from Donoghue (Learned by Heart), which is inspired by a true story. On Oct. 22, 1895, Mado Pelletier boards the express from Granville to Paris with a homemade bomb in tow. Born into poverty, she's furious over the plight of the working class, which is made all the more plain to her by the arrangement of the train's carriages: first-class passengers are placed at the center of the train to cushion the blow in the event of a crash. ("This train is a moving image of the unfairness of the long con of life," she thinks.) Three members of Parliament are riding in first class, and Mado hopes that by assassinating them, she will send a message to the ruling class. But as the locomotive speeds toward Paris, Mado meets her fellow passengers and questions whether she can follow through with her plan. Through shifting points of view—including that of the train engine itself—Donoghue establishes an intricate web of human relationships as the narrative speeds toward an unexpected yet plausible finale. Along the way, she offers detailed commentary on the railway's cynical exploitation of its workers, enriching the themes raised by Mado's critique. Readers ought to jump on board.
