You love to travel. No, wait, I’m not overgeneralizing! Hear me out, because I have an argument all prepared. You might have instantly thought, “yes, she read my mind!” Maybe you’re a bold backpacker who is willing to risk the discomfort of hostels in order to get that authentic experience. Maybe you’re a road-tripper, who loves driving to visit your cousin in another state. Maybe you’re a luxury traveler, potentially even a cruiser. However you choose to travel, you do, in fact, travel.
Alternatively, you might have instantly thought, “no, I hate traveling.” You don’t go anywhere; you’re a homebody, and you’re sitting on your couch reading this right now. You’re a reader, that’s why you’re on this website in the first place! If so, I see you. But in the words of the author Laurie Helgoe, “Reading is like travel, allowing you to exit your own life for a bit, and to come back with a renewed, even inspired, perspective.” My argument: when you’re reading, you’re traveling with your imagination.
So yes, you love to travel, and why don’t you do it in style? No lugging around an overstuffed suitcase, no stressful TSA lines, no check-engine-light throwing your ETA out the window. And best of all, when reading, you can choose your preferred mode of transportation. We’ve all had our fill of planes and automobiles, but what about trains?
In this list, trains become a perfect setting for some singular novels. All aboard bullet trains, freight trains, decadent passenger trains and more for a trip that will be unlike any you’ve had before (in either real life or in your imagination.)
Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie
The most widely-read mystery of all time recently generated some press with a sparkling, star-studded film treatment. But trust us, the book is better. It follows a brilliant detective, the iconic household-name Frenchman Hercule Poirot who never is far from trouble. A train trip becomes derailed by murder and Poirot must get to work hunting for a killer. The vehicle plays a significant role since it’s only one of the world’s most luxurious passenger trains.
As one might expect from the Queen of Crime’s track record, there are as many false clues as there are potential suspects, and such close quarters creates a palpable sense of menace. Once violence breaks out on board, there’s nowhere to run, forcing predator and prey to sit side by side. The opulent setting is both claustrophobic and an endless labyrinth of potential answers, sinister suspects and death around every luggage-lined corner.
The Last Professional by Ed Davis
This is a story of America written by a man who’s really seen both the gritty, grueling underside and gorgeous sky-wide expanse. Ed Davis began his writing career over 40 years ago, pausing in boxcars, under street lamps, and in hobo jungles to capture the beats and rhythms of the road. He boarded freight trains and vagabonded around the Pacific Northwest and Canada. From this tried-and-true experience, he writes about Lynden Hoover, a young man on the brink of a fresh start, who cannot embrace the possibilities without confronting the traumas of his past. Help comes from The Duke, an old loner who calls America’s open landscape his home. He clings to an honor code, but in fleeing from a merciless enemy, his code is being tested.
At the end of the 20th century, The Duke mentors Lynden, enlisting old traveling friends to keep himself and his apprentice just ahead of said enemy’s relentless pursuit. When two of those friends are murdered, the stakes become life or death. Bonds are formed, secrets exposed, sacrifices made, trusts betrayed; all against a breathtaking American landscape of promise and peril. Here are three unforgettable characters hurtling toward a spellbinding climax where pasts and futures collide and lives hang in the balance.
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
The #1 New York Times bestseller and USA Today Book of the Year is now a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt. A suspenseful noir novel like this would have been on the fast track to fame even if pre-publication reviews hadn’t been comparing it to Gillian Flynn’s explosively popular Gone Girl. Like Flynn’s novel, the story in The Girl on the Train is told by multiple unreliable narrators including Rachel, the title character, who, like the main character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (which, if you haven’t watched, you’re seriously missing out on. Also, his Strangers on a Train …) observes some alarmingly suspicious behavior while looking out her own window.
This glimpse into a crime scene leads to Rachel, a heavy-drinking, blackout-prone divorcee, inserting herself into a local murder investigation to her detriment. Packed with red herrings, secrets and seductions, this psychological thriller will have you turning the pages before you finish the last sentence of the description. It was arguably the biggest thriller of 2015.
Cover Your Tracks by Daco S. Auffenorde
A Suspense Magazine Best of 2020 for Thriller/Suspense as well as the Best Thriller Books 2021 Action Thriller of the Year, this page-turner is the story of Margo Fletcher, very pregnant and traveling by train from Chicago to Spokane, her childhood home. While passing through an isolated portion of the Rockies in blizzard conditions, the train unexpectedly brakes. Up ahead, a massive avalanche plummets down the mountain. Despite the conductor’s order for the passengers to stay seated, former Army Ranger Nick Eliot insists that survival depends on moving to the back of the train. Only Margo believes him.
The pair end up as the sole survivors, stranded in the snowstorm without food, water or heat. Rescuers might not arrive for days. When the weather turns violent again, the pair must flee the shelter of the passenger car and run for their lives into the wilderness. They must fend off the deadly cold as well as predatory wild animals foraging for food. Eventually, Nick leads Margo to shelter in a watchtower atop a mountain. There, we learn that both Margo and Nick have secrets that have brought them together and threaten to destroy them.
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
What is it about trains that gets books steamrolling onto the critics’ hit lists? Here’s another #1 New York Times bestseller, but this one is somber in a different way and dramatic in a searing, heart-wrenching sense. Between the years of 1854 and 1929, trains known as “orphan trains” ran from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of unwanted children to an uncertain fate. They could be adopted by kind people and start over with a loving family; they could also face a rough upbringing of labor and servitude.
Library Journal summarizes it nicely, praising “A compelling story about loss, adaptability, and courage . . . With compassion and delicacy Kline presents a little-known chapter of American history and draws comparisons with the modern-day foster care system.” A young Irish immigrant child, Vivian, finds herself in this traumatic situation. Generations later, a 17-year-old maid in service to the aged Vivian pieces the past together. The two bond over their unexpectedly similar stories.
Bullet Train: A Novel by Kotaro Isaka
This thriller is not only scintillatingly scary but smartly satirical, and it’s by a bestselling Japanese author who takes the action up to extremely high speeds. Also, it’s set to be a major film from Sony starring Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Logan Lerman and more. Watch out for it on July 15th! Five top-notch assassins step onboard a train journeying from Tokyo to Morioka, and each of them has a dangerous mission. Though they don’t know it yet, those missions are intertwined.
NPR says, “Zippily translated by Sam Malissa for The Overlook Press, this is one novel that lives up to its title. Fueled by a seductively explosive premise, it’s fast, deadly and loads of fun … At once outlandish and virtuoso, Bullet Train is like one of those dazzling balance beam routines that keep you hoping the gymnast will stick the landing.” While we can’t say with certainty that the book is better than the upcoming movie quite yet, we can advise with near-certainty to always read the book first.
Violet by SJI Holliday
Another page-turner, this time with an extra dose of mystery, is set on an enigmatic engine you might have heard of: the Trans-Siberian Express. This female-driven novel is a psychological thriller that doesn’t disappoint and doesn’t do as expected. As The Sun reports, “Holliday is excellent at creating an atmosphere of unease,” so get ready for your best reading holiday ever … sorry. I’ll see myself out.
When protagonist Carrie’s friend backs out of a planned trip, Carrie decides she can handle a solo voyage. At a hotel pre-trip, however, she meets fellow traveler Violet and invites her to take her friend’s place. The duo starts the voyage in high spirits, but as the wheels turn and they get further invested in their choice, danger sets in: one of the women is not what she says she is, and her secrets could prove fatal for the other. Like in Agatha Christie’s book, the claustrophobic atmosphere only heightens the drama and doesn’t let the reader out until the final climactic pages.
Mistaken Identity by Michael W. Sherer
In this edge-of-your-seat ride, suspended FBI agent Jenny Roberts is going home for the first time in 15 years … if she can make it there alive. Mistaken for a woman who witnessed a murder, Jenny and the witness are chased relentlessly across the country to her destination, where Jenny hopes to join forces with the family of cops that raised her and, with some backup, defeat this killer.
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly says, “Sherer keeps the live wires of his complex plot sparking and distinct” and calls Mistaken Identity, the sequel to last year’s Stolen Identity, “a sharp and satisfying thriller.” The intense emotional drama leaves nothing to be desired, either: this author’s latest may just be his greatest. Read our review here.
