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Book Review of The Christmas Train

The Christmas Train
reviewed on + 94 more book reviews


The central character of the story is Tom Langdon, an investigative reporter who has relegated himself to writing about furniture following his more adventurous existence with his longtime girl friend, Eleanor, in foreign lands covering wars and such. He decides to take a cross-country train trip partly to fulfill a request from his now deceased father and partly to reflect on his own life and to see a friend on the West Coast. The Capitol is the train to Chicago where he changes to the Southwest Chief for the rest of the trip. There are colorful characters on the train and one gets a good insight into the domain of travel by rail. Tom is very surprised to find that Eleanor is on the same train. He has never forgotten her but has not seen her since she left him while overseas. He is overwhelmed by the coincidence and does some checking to try to verify that it indeed was a coincidence. Eleanor is on the train with her boss Max Powers, a movie producer as he is considering a movie with a train setting. For Eleanor seeing Tom was certainly not love at second sight. Two other travelers are planning to get married on the train as they go from Chicago to Los Angeles. Max decides to give them a great wedding and film it as well. After being snowbound in Colorado, the train continues to L.A. where mysteries are solved and some surprises revealed. A great X-mas story.