The Secret Of The Night Train

When Max is sent to Istanbul to stay with her boring Great Aunt-Elodie, little does she expect to be plunged into a thrilling nighttime adventure across Europe. Max must find her feet in a whirling world of would-be diamond smugglers, thieves and undercover detectives. Will she discover the real diamond thief before they reach their destination?

"David Quantick is one of the best kept secrets in the world of writing. He's smart, funny and unique. You should let yourself in on the secret." - Neil Gaiman From Emmy-Award winning author David Quantick, Night Train is a science-fiction horror story like no other. A woman wakes up, frightened and alone. The room shaking and jumping like it's alive. The noise is terrifying. Where is she? Stumbling through a door, she realizes she is on a train carriage. A carriage full of the dead. A personal hell unfolding in an apocalyptic future. This is NIGHT TRAIN. A terrifying ride set on a driverless locomotive, heading for a collision somewhere in the endless night. How did the woman get here? Who is she? And who are the dead? As our heroine makes her way through the train trying to find out what happened to her, she meets a former strongman, a trained killer, and a collection of strange and terrifying creatures. Each step takes her closer to finding out the secret of the Night Train.

Like The Mystery of the Yellow Room, The Secret of the Night is a Joseph Rouletabille mystery. In The Mystery of the Yellow Room fictional detective Rouletabille investigated a complex and seemingly impossible crime - in which the criminal appears to disappear from a locked room! There've been so many locked-room mysteries since that it's become a subgenre - but there are folks who believe Gaston Leroux invented the form. (We hate assertions like that. Have you noticed how often things turn out to have been invented by monks in the middle ages, or by prehistoric Chinamen, or seventeenth-century Englishmen? - Heavy sigh.) John Dickson Carr, the master of locked-room mystery, named The Mystery of the Yellow Room as the "finest locked room tale ever written" in his 1935 novel the Hollow Man.

The bestselling novel of love and sacrifice under fascist rule, and “a treat for the mind. One of the best books I have read in a long time” (Isabel Allende). Raimund Gregorius, a professor of dead languages at a Swiss secondary school, lives a life governed by routine. Then, an enigmatic Portuguese woman stirs his interest in an obscure, and mind-expanding book of philosophy that opens the possibility of changing Raimund’s existence. That same night, he takes the train to Lisbon to research the book’s phantom author, Amadeu de Prado, a renowned physician whose principles led him to confront Salazar’s dictatorship. Raimund, now obsessed with unlocking the mystery behind the man, is determined to meet all those on whom Prado left an indelible mark. Among them: his eighty-year-old sister, who maintains her brother’s house as if it were a museum; an elderly cleric and torture survivor confined to a nursing home; and Prado’s childhood friend and eventual partner in the Resistance. The closer Raimund comes to the truth of Prado’s life, and eventual fate, an extraordinary tale takes shape amid the labyrinthine memories of Prado’s intimate circle of family and friends, working in utmost secrecy to fight dictatorship, and the betrayals that threaten to expose them. “A meditative, deliberate exploration of loneliness, language and the human condition” (The San Diego Union-Tribune), Night Train to Lisbon “call[s] to mind the magical realism of Jorge Amado or Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . allusive and thought-provoking, intellectually curious and yet heartbreakingly jaded,” and inexorably propelled by the haunting mystery at its heart (The Providence Journal). Night Train to Lisbon was adapted into Bille August’s award-winning 2013 film starring Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Christopher Lee, and Charlotte Rampling.

A secret agent aboard a galactic railroad must derail a sinister conspiracy in this “rip-roaring” thriller by the author of Star Wars: Thrawn (Publishers Weekly). The universe is a dangerous place, a fact violently brought home to Frank Compton for perhaps the thousandth time when a stranger delivering a message dies right in front of him. An operative for Western Alliance Intelligence until his whistle-blowing activities got him fired, Compton is now being sought out by the Spiders, the robotic alien beings responsible for the upkeep and operation of the Quadrail transportation system, which connects the galaxy’s twelve inhabited empires. The discovery of a sinister plot to use the Quadrail for ill has brought the Spiders to Compton—for only someone possessing the former agent’s unique skills can stop the scheme for good. But when Compton leaves Earth behind—joining forces with Bayta, the Spiders’ beautiful, half-human representative aboard the Quadrail—the terrifying scope of a vast, galaxy-wide conspiracy begins to reveal itself. Targeted on all sides by alien assassins of every shape and species, Compton and his enigmatic new partner are suddenly in a race against a clock ticking down to an irreversible doomsday, one in which the galactic night train will derail, carrying all members of humanity screaming to their deaths. The first in the Quadrail series from the Hugo Award–winning author of Blackcollar and many New York Times–bestselling Star Wars novels, Night Train to Rigel is an action-packed “great read” (Booklist).

‘A mesmerising story of love and hope...the best book that I have read this year’ Penny, Reader Review The most heartbreaking historical fiction novel you will read this year from the USA Today bestseller!

A sharp twist on the noir genre from one of England’s finest fiction writers 'I worked one hundred murders,' says Detective Mike Hoolihan, an American policewoman. 'In my time I have come in on the aftermath of maybe a thousand suspicious deaths, most of which turned out to be suicides, accidentals or plain unattendeds. So I've seen them all: jumpers, stumpers, dumpers, dunkers, bleeders, floaters, poppers, bursters. But of all the bodies I have ever seen none has stayed with me, in my gut, like the body of Jennifer Rockwell. I say all this because I am part of the story I am going to tell, and I feel the need to give you some idea of where I'm coming from.' Night Train is a mystery story which lingers in the reader's mind even after Mike Hoolihan declares the case closed. ‘Tough, noir, Chandleresque’ Independent ‘Night Train is both delicate and bruising - a long drawn-out blue note. The book hangs around in the mind like smoke in a jazz club’ Telegraph Magazine

A bestselling modern classic—both poignant and funny—narrated by a fifteen year old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions. Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. At fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbour’s dog Wellington impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As Christopher tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, the narrative draws readers into the workings of Christopher’s mind. And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotions. The effect is dazzling, making for one of the freshest debut in years: a comedy, a tearjerker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.