From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Room and The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue takes readers on a thrilling ride through a simmering turn-of-the-century Paris on the edge of a dazzling future.

‘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

A woman determined to make her mark. A journey that will change everything.

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

"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