FATAL FIRST EDITION

A murder on a train carries echoes of another fateful railroad trip.

Library director Lindsey Norris and her husband, Mike Sullivan, are in Chicago attending a conference. During a book restoration lecture on the last day, someone leaves a bag under Lindsey’s seat containing a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train inscribed from the author to Alfred Hitchcock, making it potentially very valuable. Lindsey turns it over to conference head Henry Standish, a man with a checkered past that’s earned him multiple enemies. Lindsey and Sully, along with Henry and many other conference participants, had taken a train from the East Coast to Chicago for the conference; now, as they settle into their roomette for the return trip, prospects for a pleasant ride turn sour when Lydia Armand—who took over Henry’s job after he was accused of fraud—turns up. That night, after some nasty verbal jousts, Lindsey hears thumping noises from the next compartment and sees a person shrouded in black in the passageway. The next morning, Henry is found murdered in his compartment. Upon the arrival of a dangerous snowstorm, the police remove passengers to a local inn near Briar Creek, Connecticut, Lindsey and Sully’s hometown, while they investigate. When the valuable book turns up in Lindsey’s laptop bag, she takes it to the police, while Sully, a boat captain, heads out in the storm to deliver food to nearby islands. Much to her consternation, Lindsey is unable to contact Sully, and a search discovers his boat drifting offshore. Clues from the boat indicate that Sully may have been spirited away, and Lindsey resolves to search for him while she seeks a motive for Standish’s murder.

Plenty of hair-raising adventures combine with more cerebral pursuits in this enjoyable tale.