The 10:12

The 10:12 by Anna Maloney, 320 pages

Retired art professor Claire was on the titular train between Manchester and London when it was hijacked by a group of armed men. When she encounters one of the hijackers near the restroom, she's faced with a choice: stand by passively or fight back. Claire chose to fight, and for the first half of the book, we have a fast-paced thriller akin to Speed in a train. But once the train reaches London, the pace slows down as Claire navigates the legal proceedings afterward in which she is seen as both a hero and a villain, depending on who's talking. It's an interesting way of presenting a hijack story, and one that I'm not sure I fully enjoyed, especially with the rapid slowdown. Meh.

This book will be published Oct. 20, 2026.

The Elsewhere Express

The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao, 432 pages. 

Sometimes when people's thoughts start to drift away from their life, those people drift towards the Elsewhere Express, a train made of thoughts that promises a more magical existence, full of peace and purpose. Raya has been drifting for years, robbed of her purpose when the brother she was born to save dies young. She has tried giving up her dreams of songwriting to pursue his instead, but she can't help but feel unmoored from her life. She finds herself on The Elsewhere Express at the same time as Q, an artist who is losing his art as he loses his vision. But something else has boarded the train at the same time, a stowaway with the power to destroy the train is Q and Raya can't find a way to stop it. 

This book has maximum amounts of whimsy, balanced out somewhat by the very real pain of the characters. It feels like the show Infinity Train by way of Studio Ghibli. While the story was engaging, the setting is the real star of the show. It creates the kind of place that I wanted to linger in while I read the book. However, time nonsense is a bit of a plot pet peeve of mine, and I am afraid that does come into play into this book, which makes it a little hard for me to fairly judge the resolution. This is a book that deals heavily with the symbolic and emotional, turning it into something physical to examine it from a new angle. I don't know if I enjoyed this book quite as much as the author's first novel, but it has given me a lot to chew on, and I wouldn't be surprised if I end up rereading it at some point. 

The Harvey Girls

The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay, 384 pages

It's 1926, and former Boston socialite Charlotte is on the run from her abusive husband. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Billie is leaving home to earn some money to support her parents and eight younger siblings. While they don't have much in common on paper, both women end up being accepted as Harvey Girls, the picture-perfect waitresses who staff the first hospitality chain, along the railroad between Kansas and California. Neither Charlotte nor Billie fits the rules of eligibility for Harvey Girls — who must be at least 18 and unmarried — and their secrets bind the women together as they undergo training in Topeka and get their first post at the Grand Canyon. 

This is a part of 20th Century American history that I haven't often seen in historical fiction, and this book made me want to learn more about the Harvey Girls, the first all-female workforces in the West. The main characters and their growth felt realistic, and I particularly enjoyed Charlotte's journey to self-discovery regarding the Indigenous cultures surrounding the hotel at the Grand Canyon. Highly recommended!

The Paris Express

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue, 288 pages

On October 22, 1895, a train left Granville, France, headed for Paris, with several stops along the way. With four railroad employees and a range of first, second, and third-class passengers — including the uber-wealthy man whose private car was attached during an unscheduled stop — the titular Paris Express was helping everyone from painters and fisherfolk to politicians and students and businessmen shorten a days-long commute into one that usually takes about eight hours. However, an angry young woman boarded the train in Granville with ulterior motives, determined to make a political statement with a spectacle of her own creation. As the train speeds toward Paris, tensions increase and it's clear that this is no ordinary journey.

Loosely based on an actual event, this book was a suspenseful trip to the late 19th Century in France, with a wide range of actual historical people riding the train. Now the "loosely" part is the fact that while the people are real, very few of them were actually on the train in question, something that is revealed in the author's note at the end of the book. Really, it was a fun read, reminiscent of The Great Train Robbery and even the non-fiction Dead Wake — until that author's note. So if you want historical accuracy, this might not be the best place to get it. However, if you just want a suspenseful historical train ride, this is a fun one.

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

 The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman, 544 pages.

The third book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series takes us to the fourth floor, a very different type of dungeon level. This level is more puzzle than adventure game, with hundreds of train lines winding and twisting in an incomprehensible tangle. Luckily the crawlers, the last remnants of what was once humanity, have started unionizing. Huge networks of crawlers are getting connected, and it seems like together they may just survive this yet.

This was a slightly different type of book than the first two, but I think it did a really good job delving deeper into the themes of the series. I also don't think I've ever been more grateful for an author's note, which assured me before the book started that I didn't have to remember the many, many, many train line names and station numbers, thereby freeing me up to actually think about the story. I'm having a lot of fun with this series! I am currently impatiently waiting for book four to come in on hold. 

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson, 320 pages

This sequel to Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone finds new author Ernest attending a small writing festival on a trans-Australian train. He's there with a few other crime writers, hoping to get some inspiration for a second novel — preferably one that isn't inspired by a spate of real life murders, which is how he got the idea for his first book. Unfortunately, with a train full of crime writers and their fans, these are just the sort of people to know how to creatively commit a crime, and sure enough, murder soon appears on the festival agenda.

I didn't read the first book, but that's not exactly required for this one. The characters and plot are interesting, and I honestly would have loved this book if it wasn't for the fourth-wall-breaking that kept taking me out of the story. It's very meta — a book that's from the point of view of an author who's writing a sequel to a popular debut murder mystery — and that in itself isn't unheard of or irksome. But the wink-and-nod "this is how you plot a murder mystery novel with word count markings for twists" and "this is how many times I'm going to mention the killer's name" and "hey, this is where we are on the word count and the number of times I've mentioned each character's name" breaks only served to distract from the otherwise compelling novel.

How to Be Perfect

How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur, 289 pages

Some background before I start discussing the actual book: The author of this book is Michael Schur, creator of the hilarious and thoughtful sitcom The Good Place, which recently finished its four-season run to much acclaim. The TV show focuses on four people dealing with their afterlives, attempting to make themselves good enough people to stay in the titular Good Place. How do they do it? By studying moral philosophy, of course!

With all of that in mind, How to Be Perfect is Schur's book report on all of the moral philosophy research he did before creating the TV show. In it, he covers all the big names of secular moral philosophy from Aristotle to Kant to Ayn Rand (ugh) to Sartre and beyond, explaining them clearly for everyday people like me, someone who never expected to read — much less enjoy! — a book on moral philosophy. It's hilarious, thought-provoking, and full of excellent footnotes. I listened to the audiobook, which was a special treat, as Good Place cast members read bits and pieces throughout the book.

I have recommended this book to just about everybody I've talked to during the last week or two, and I can't imagine I'll stop recommending it anytime soon. Read it! Listen to it! 

Hope Never Dies

Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer (2018)  301 pages

Inspired by Kara, I started reading this work of fiction featuring Joe Biden and Barack Obama on election day. Told from Joe Biden's point of view, the story begins with Biden feeling hurt because Obama hasn't reached out to interact with him since they left office, and trying to assuage his jealousy when he sees media reports of Obama's interactions with the rich and famous. But then who should appear but Obama himself, to tell Biden that a longtime acquaintance of Biden's, Amtrak conductor Finn Donnelly, has been hit by a train. The Feds found a map indicating that the conductor was trying to contact Biden. Worse, Biden learns later from a Delaware police detective that the conductor had heroin in his pocket.

The story takes off from there, with Biden making sure the conductor's family is okay and then trying to vindicate Finn. Obama and his Secret Service agent, Steve, go along for the ride (often literally) as the details come out. But who can be trusted? The story is filled with folksy aphorisms and metaphors galore, which make Biden sound so authentic. The wrap-up is quite thrilling. Fun book!

Hope Never Dies

Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer, 301 pages

In this wonderfully refreshing mystery novel, former Vice President Joe Biden is chilling at home in Delaware eight months after leaving office, grousing to himself about Barack Obama's post-presidential celebrity-filled, globe-trotting adventures, when he learns that his favorite Amtrak conductor has died under mysterious circumstances. And who should be the one to deliver this news but 44 himself, appearing in Biden's yard in the dead of night with a Secret Service agent named Steve. From that moment on, Biden and Obama are on the case, dragging poor Steve through rough neighborhoods, into the den of a biker gang, and, of course, to the Amtrak station.

Oh, how I needed this book right now. This campy and cozy mystery is exactly the heroic story that's needed in today's messy political climate. (Just look at that cover! Isn't that enough to tell you how great it is?) Shaffer plays on the shoot-from-the-hip, everybody's-favorite-uncle persona of Biden and the lovingly-put-upon, smarter-than-your-average-bear persona of Obama that spawned a thousand memes. I hope that Shaffer writes more of these, and I hope that they gain enough readers that someone, somewhere convinces Joe Biden to do the audiobook.

What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!

What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! by Agatha Christie (1957) 185 pages

Elspeth McGillicuddy was in a train when she witnessed a murder occurring in a passing train. She reported it immediately to the ticket taker and then to the station master at the next stop, and even to the police. The trouble was that she was an older woman and thus not taken seriously, plus no dead body was found on any trains in the next few days.

Her friend, Jane Marple, quite an old woman herself, hatches a plan to find the body after scoping out train time tables and railway maps, long before these days of satellite imagery on Google. She hires a young woman to take a job at an estate near the likeliest place that a body would have been thrown from the train. The woman locates the body in a sarcophagus in an outbuilding on the estate, but the mystery only deepens as the body remains unidentified. An old man, Luther Crackenthorpe, owns the estate. His relationship with his three sons is antagonistic while his dutiful daughter tends to his needs. When the Scotland Yard investigation of the dead woman stalls out, deaths follow in the Crackenthorpe family. Miss Marple keeps up with the investigation from the sideline, and (of course) she knows who the murderer is long before I do.

This mystery is traditional Agatha Christie, with its fast pace and suspense.

Notes from a Small Island

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson  324 pp.

This has been on my "to read" list for a long time. I'm sorry I didn't read it sooner. This is such a fun book. Bryson details his travels about his adopted homeland of England traveling by foot mostly but taking the odd bus, train, or ferry when necessary. He gives droll descriptions of the small towns and their inhabitants and revels in the scenery to be found in the remotest of locations. Other times he rants about the curious inability to get to nearby places without roundabout trips via bus or train. In between he provides tongue-in-cheek commentary on such things as peculiar town names (Farleigh Wallop, Pinhead, West Stuttering...), inexplicable guest house "instructions", surly, entertaining, and/or just odd people he encountered, and other characteristics that make Britain British. I found myself laughing out loud during many parts of this book. This one is well worth giving a go.

The 6:41 to Paris

The 6:41 to Paris / Jean-Philippe Blondel  146 pgs.

Cécile and Philippe had a brief but important affair in their early 20's.  It ended poorly mostly because Philippe was a real ass.  Now, 26 years later, they find themselves sitting next to each other on the train.  Cécile, once a plain girl with an interesting personality has turned into a well put together and more beautiful woman. Philippe, who was once the stunner hasn't aged well and is doughy and could not be mistaken for any younger than his actual age.  Cécile is still pretty mad about the way their relationship ended.  Philippe feels bad about it.  Neither wants to be the first to speak on the train.  Neither is sure the other recognizes their seat mate.  The book alternates between the two characters and fills you in on their past, and lives.  Amazing for its suspense...are they going to talk or not?

Read and find out! 

The 6:41 to Paris

The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Phillippe Blondel, translated by Alison Anderson, 146 pages


On a packed commuter train to Paris, Cecile is sitting by the sole open seat when a man sits down next to her. As fate would have it, the man is Phillippe, a man she dated briefly 27 years earlier. But this is no sunny trip down memory lane: their short affair ended in brutal humiliation for Cecile, and impacted both of their lives in ways they would never have imagined. Taking place entirely on the 90-minute train ride, The 6:41 to Paris jumps between the thoughts of Cecile and Phillippe, who are unsure of how to interact (or even if they should) given their painful history. For a short book set almost entirely in the minds of the two main characters, this is a surprisingly suspenseful tale, as Blondel masterfully uses their emotions to drop hints about their past before revealing it in the final pages of the book. This is an excellent short read. I highly recommend it.