A cross-country train journey where everyone is a suspect. An investigator with a love of puzzles. A Golden Age classic, perfect for summer.

First published in 1937, a Golden Age classic murder mystery set on a cross-country train.

‘A highly ingenious, entertaining and unusual tale’ – Daily Herald

The luxurious Transcontinental Express, a locomotive journeying coast-to-coast across the United States, is the height of 1930s technology and sophistication. Alongside carriages for dining, drinking and dancing, there’s even a swimming pool car. And it’s there, just one day into the journey, that the corpse of a banker is found.

With a killer on the train, the passengers soon begin to turn on one another. It’s up to the clever Dr Pons – with his sharp wit and knack for impossible puzzles – to get to the bottom of the case, even as every new piece of evidence seems to suggest more perplexing possibilities.

‘Ingenious . . . A satisfyingly complex solution to both crimes’ – Booklist

‘Extravagantly brainy, gloriously dated’ – Kirkus