Kathy Reviews: Train Wreck by Bennett Gavrish

ASIN #: B005KDD3TC

File Size: 269 KB

Book Summary:

(Taken from Amazon)

What if I told you there is a secret stock market that assigns a dollar value to the life of every man, woman and child?

Would you believe it? And more importantly, how much do you think you'd be worth? Nick Buchanan faces that question every day. He works for a nontraditional insurance firm that gambles on the lives of ordinary Americans and cashes in when they die. After one of his clients is murdered, Nick finds himself in the middle of a tangled conspiracy that he must unravel before the killers can claim another victim.

Kathy's Review:

This story centers around Nick Buchanan, who is leaving Boston on the red-eye Amtrak train, headed for D.C. He just quit his job and is not sure what his future holds. As the story begins, Nick is waiting for the train to arrive with his fellow passengers. Gavrish very hilariously describes the passengers - in fact, the entire book is filled with laugh-out-loud moments and current pop culture references.

The train is delayed and the passengers begin to talk to each other, and as the story progresses, we learn the back stories of each passenger. When the night is over we learn that each passenger on this train car is connected to Nick in some way, although Nick never realizes this.

Train Wreck is a little bit predictable, and the characters are more caricatures, but the humorous writing style makes up for some of this, in my mind. I was envisioning the beginning of the story as a play in the theater, since it takes place in a small space and the characters are so exaggerated. The back stories could also be developed for the stage.

Overall, I enjoyed Train Wreck - I appreciated the voice of the author, his writing style, and interesting plot twists. I would recommend Train Wreck to an audience who doesn't mind a little bit of crass humor (definitely some foul language in here, as well as sexual innuendoes). It's an enjoyable ride.