THE PARIS EXPRESS

This thrill ride of an audiobook tells the many stories of those onboard Train 721, which crashes in Montparnasse station in October 1895. British narrator Justin Avoth narrates the drama at a good pace and keeps the story moving. Donoghue brings her plotting skills, eloquent style, and eye for social mores to the cast of fictional people who are on the train. To the group she adds the real-life playwright John Synge and American painter Henry Trainer, among others. Tension mounts as a young anarchist carries a homemade bomb, a baby is born, and, inexorably, the train plows into the station. It's remembered in a famous photo of the engine dangling out of a parapet. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2025]