The Paris Express

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What to expect

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

Critics Review

A zippy Agatha Christie-like thriller giving a taste of life in fin-de-siècle France
The Guardian
A pacy read of secrets and lies
The i Paper
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
The Independent
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
The Washington Post
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
The Sunday Times (Ireland)
A nail-biter – and you'll learn some history, too
People
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

User Reviews

Book 4.0
Narration 4.0
4.0
4.0
This was far more interesting than I thought it would be after the first chapter. If you're one of those people (like me) who enjoys people-watching on public transport, then you'll enjoy this. Loads of observations of the passengers, as well as the build up to the crash. At one point, I wasn't sure if it was actually going to end with a crash, or a far more dramatic end. All in all, an interesting listen.
ClareR 17/06/2025

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