Emma Donoghue’s latest novel is about the Montparnasse train crash that occurred on October 22, 1895 in Paris. If you know nothing about this train crash, I recommend waiting until after you have read The Paris Express before Googling it, otherwise you will spoil some of the suspense of this novel.

The Paris Express is set entirely over one day on the Granville-Paris Express train, from its boarding at 8:30 a.m. at the Granville station to its arrival at 4:00 p.m. at the Paris-Montparnasse station. The story jumps all over the train, from the first-class passenger cars to the third-class passenger cars, from the driver’s compartment to the luggage cars, giving the reader glimpses into the lives of the passengers and crew aboard the train.

The story mainly follows a young woman named Mado Pelletier, an anarchist with a bomb who plans on blowing up the train, although she has a hard time deciding when exactly to set off her bomb. Other passengers include an altruistic Russian émigré who is suspicious of Mado, a few politicians that Mado is excited to blow up, a female medical student who believes another passenger is dying, a young boy on his way home to his parents, and an extremely pregnant woman who is determined to have her baby in Paris.

The Paris Express is an interesting story, and Donoghue does a fantastic job of not only immersing the reader in 19th century life but also showing how people experienced life back then is really not that much different from how we experience life now. The problem with The Paris Express, though, is that there are too many characters. I had a hard time keeping track of the characters at first, and I feel that the reader is only given a cursory look into most of their lives. It’s like their purpose is just to show where they are on the social strata.

As someone who appreciates character-driven novels, The Paris Express could have benefited with focusing on fewer characters and allowing the reader to develop a deeper connection to those characters. The tension in the story feels abstract when you don’t really know all the people who might end up dead by the end of it.

The Paris Express is the weakest of Donoghue’s novels that I have read so far. It’s not one that I would recommend starting with if you have never read any of her novels before.