The Paris Express cover art

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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The Paris Express

By: Emma Donoghue
Narrated by: Justin Avoth
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About this listen

In this riveting historical thriller, a deadly plot unfolds aboard a train hurtling towards Paris. From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Room, Emma Donoghue takes you on a heart-pounding ride in The Paris Express.

'Ratchets up the pace until it's hurtling along as fast as the train itself' – Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
'Riveting' – The Washington Post
'All about speed . . . this novel is a masterclass' – The Independent

Paris, 1895. Glamour hides a city on the brink. 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

 Genre Fiction Historical Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Exciting Marriage

Critic reviews

A zippy Agatha Christie-like thriller giving a taste of life in fin-de-siècle France
A pacy read of secrets and lies
The Paris Express is all about speed, and its heady corollary, escape. Good writing is also about momentum, and another corollary, the suspension of disbelief. This novel is a masterclass in both: an engrossing narrative, married to its intrinsic specificity, the joy of details
A riveting mix of social commentary and mystery . . . has much in common with Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express . . . If the steam engine is an astonishing feat of engineering, so is Donoghue’s propulsive and thought-provoking 16th novel
Donoghue deftly combines thriller and mystery elements with her trademark historical fiction . . . To say more about it would be to spoil the luxurious enjoyment of sinking into the multifaceted narrative that [she] creates
A nail-biter – and you'll learn some history, too
Donoghue's historical fiction holds a special place in my heart . . . [she] is not a timid custodian of the past but an excavator, digging beneath bromides to unearth the defiant truth (Naoise Dolan, The Irish Times)
Clever, ambitious, and richly researched. A slice of 1890s Paris that makes us see that our modern problems aren’t so modern after all! The Paris Express is a smartly structured novel that ratchets up the pace until it's hurtling along as fast as the doomed train itself (Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam)
Captivating! Emma Donoghue writes in rich, luxuriant detail, yet the story moves at a exhilarating clip. An edge-of-your-seat historical thriller that I couldn’t put down (Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures)
Wonderful. In exploring a little-remembered event in history, she manages to hold a mirror up to a whole society. An absorbing, panoramic, meticulously researched, lovingly peopled gem (Esi Edugyan, author of Washington Black)
Donoghue's talents are at such glorious heights in this novel (Heather O'Neill, author of The Capital of Dreams)
You’ll find plenty of intimacy but few displays of party manners among the passengers Donoghue introduces in The Paris Express . . . As the train speeds toward the capital, vignettes in the various carriages provide a tension-filled panorama of fin-de-siècle French society (Alida Becker, The New York Times)
All stars
Most relevant
Very interesting and entertaining. Well read and paced by Reader. Research for this book was amazing. Altho too many characters I enjoyed the quirky ones esp in third class.
4 out of 5

Train Travel in its Infancy in France.

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enjoyed opening & characterisation. lost interest about 3rd way through. I thought it would engage me more?

pais express

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