In Car No. 4 of the night train from Marseille to Paris a railway employee finds a dead woman. She has been killed on the train after its arrival in Paris. Beginning with this apparently motiveless murder Sébastien Japrisot’s novel develops into a compelling crime mystery as the first death is followed by a series of ruthless killings in the French capital. The only thing these murders have in common is that all the victims travelled north that night in carriage IV of the 10.30 train from Marseille. Inspectors Grazziano and Gabert of the Paris police struggle to track down the murderer as the bodies begin to pile up and they begin to sense a killer determined to cover his or her tracks no matter what the human cost. Much more than an ordinary police procedural, Japrisot’s novel is a subtle and stylish narrative of murder and its consequences.
