This Train
A Novel
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
The new novel from the acclaimed author of Six Days of the Condor—set on a heart-pounding cross-country train ride.
"Grady's style is loose, colorful, challenging and fun. I sometimes thought of Orwell’s novel 1984, sometimes of the Dylan song 'Desolation Row.'"—Patrick Anderson,The Washington Post
"Grady is a master of intrigue."—John Grisham
This Train races us through America's heartland, carrying secrets. There is treasure in the cargo car, along with an invisible puppeteer. There is a coder named Nora, Mugzy, the yippy dog, and Ross, the too-curious poet. On board, it's a countdown to murder…
On this train there is a silver madman, a targeted banker, and crises of conscience. This train harbors the "perfect" couple's conspiracies, the chaos of being a teenager, and parenthood alongside the wows of being nine. There is a widow and a wannabe, and the sleaziest billionaire.
On this train, there is the suicide ticket, the bomb, sex, love, and loneliness. The heist. Revenge. Redemption.
This Train is a ticking clock, roaring through forty-seven fictional hours of non-stop suspense and action, through the challenges of now: Racism. Sexism. Global warming. What it means to be alive.
This train carries all of us. All aboard!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This knotty heist novel from Grady (Six Days of the Condor) opens on a 47-hour train ride from Seattle to Chicago, where hackers are conspiring to make off with millions of dollars in "expired" cash that's set to be incinerated at the Federal Reserve. The large cast includes a coder trying to keep the grift together, a banker and his murderous wife, a perfect couple who aren't so perfect, a yippie dog and its protective owner, and numerous others spread across a slew of plotlines that sometimes intersect but tend to fade from mind as the train diligently plods along its route. Grady spins from character to character, event to event without much in the way of exposition or buildup of the emotional suspense one would expect from this ticking clock of a premise. Tangents on famous Americans and landmarks that have little or nothing to do with the characters or plot pepper the book, which often feels like an indie film trying to obscure its lack of cohesion with circular dialogue and the occasional glimmer of sex. Readers will struggle to stay on board.
