Train Man (Mass Market Paperback)

~ P. T. Deutermann (Author) "THE RIVER was boundless and almost invisible in the darkness..." (more)
Key Phrases: special tank cars, pier tower, barge strings, Carolyn Lang, Baton Rouge, Colonel Anderson (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Flexing his considerable prowess at plotting as well as his ability to generate believable, sympathetic characters, Deutermann (Option Zero) delivers his most accomplished thriller yet. Two plot lines evolve, then converge. One concerns the plight of a military train caught in a perilous race against a mad bomber who's intent on destroying a series of strategic railroad bridges. The other involves the FBI's bureaucratic incompetence. When the crash landing of an air force C-130 carrying four decaying Russian nuclear warheads at Anniston (Ala.) Army Weapons Depot coincides with the terrorist demolition of one of the six major railroad bridges across the Mississippi on the eve of a major cross-country train shipment of lethal chemical weapons containers, a disaster is in the making. Assigned to find the saboteur is career FBI agent Hush Hanson, who suspects the bureau's devious director of setting him up to fail when Carolyn Lang, a beautiful female agent with the reputation of being the director's hatchet person, is assigned to partner with him on the case. As more bridges go down, the plight of the doomsday train intensifies and it becomes ever more obvious that Hanson has been made the fall guy in a scenario fraught with high political stakes. Finally, relieved from duty, Hanson and Lang are left alone to save the dayAand to deal with the steamy sexual tension that has arisen between them. Deutermann writes a sinewy, active prose that's well suited to his taut tale. The narrative exudes authorityAand the author, in fact, used to be an arms control specialist with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Intelligent, expertly detailed and highly suspenseful, Deutermann's sixth novel is a speeding entertainment locomotive. Agent, Nick Ellison. Author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Another solid performance from Deutermann (Zero Option, 1998, etc.), this time about a train-hating, vengeance-hungry madman and the FBI agents seeking to derail him. At FBI headquarters, they'd begun calling the operation ``Trainman,'' though at first something with ``Bridges'' in it would have worked as well, because it looked as if bridges were the target. Spanning the Mississippi, there are only six of them, and when two were blown to bits, the police and the FBI leapt to conclusions understandable enough though wrong. But agents Hush Hanson and Carolyn Lang widened their scopefreight trains had also been demolished. And pretty soon the investigators had reasons to desert another early theory: maybe it wasn't just terrorist groups they ought to be looking at. Maybe a single terrorist working alone was their targetsomeone handy with explosives and with a deep grudge that had festered into obsession. Meanwhile, at an army depot in Alabama, another harrowing problem was shaping up. A military train with a mysterious, potentially deadly, increasingly unstable cargo was heading west, for the Mississippi, for one of the bridges likely to be a terrorist's target. Out in the field, Hanson and Lang have all this heaped on their plates, plus an extra dollop or two from FBI politics. They have enough enemies of their own, highly placed people skilled at the game of backstabbing, to make it difficult to know who to trustand sometimes even whether they can trust each other. And yet, unmistakably, a feeling seems to be growing between the shy, unsure (in his relationships with women) Hanson and the attractive if somewhat hard-bitten Lang (``Razor-pants'' to her detractors). Finally, instead of the bridge it's the climax of the book that explodes, and most satisfactorily. Quality entertainment: the details convince, the people are real, the plot twists legitimate. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks; 1st edition (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312973705
• ISBN-13: 978-0312973704
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #614,868 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two riveting stories for the price of one, June 17, 2001

By	Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

TRAIN MAN is one of those books that I couldn't put down, and which caused my wife some exasperation. ("Are you reading again?! Which do you love more - me or that book?") Uh, sorry ... what did you say, dear?

This thriller by P.T. Deutermann is really two storylines in one, coming together only at the end. Each has its own protagonist and its own nutcase Bad Guy.

The primary plot has the TRAIN MAN blowing up railroad river bridges in retaliation for a past personal tragedy. The Good Guy on his trail is FBI Acting Assistant Director William "Hush" Hanson, who departs the Machiavellian atmosphere of the FBI's Washington headquarters for the field to run his quarry to ground. However, even out in the sticks, Hush isn't safe from the backstabbing and internecine warfare back at the Big House as spans continue to drop into the water. And what sort of game is Senior Agent Carolyn Lang, Hanson's assigned deputy for the manhunt, playing? Is that a treacherous blade in her belt, or just a friendly nail file?

The other wacko is US Army Colonel Mehle, down from the Pentagon and the National Security Council with explicit, no-nonsense orders to transport some captured Russian torpedoes with nuclear warheads from the Anniston Army Weapons Depot in Alabama to the Army's destruction facility in Tooele, Utah. The warheads need to go Right Now On The Double because they're leaking radiation, and the mode of transport is to be an Army train also taking chemical weapons to Utah for disposal. Top Brass pressure has made Mehle a bullet or two short of a full clip, so when the colonel decides to go along for the ride as the train's Full Throttle commander, Major Tom Matthews, the train's reluctant Security Officer, fears a bumpy ride and an inglorious end to his previously unblemished 20-year career.

Oh, and have I mentioned that the Train Man's targets are the bridges over the lower Mississippi River, that part of the waterway smack in the path between Alabama and Utah? Can you see where this is going?

Both plots are taut, suspenseful and finely paced, and the characters well drawn and believable. The identity of the TRAIN MAN comes as a surprise, though perhaps the revelation occurs too soon. Moreover, the author apparently researched America's rail system extensively, so the technical backdrop against which the action unfolds is very absorbing, especially if the reader has no prior knowledge of the subject. The novel's jacket compares it favorably to THE DAY OF THE JACKAL. I agree. This is quality reading entertainment.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trainman, February 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Trainman (Hardcover)

Something that puts me off about authors who use technical 'props' for their novels is innaccuracy: one slip, and it can sour the whole book. Deutermann's research into all the various elements which he ingeniously intertwines must have been exhaustive. You'd think he'd been on the railroads all his life - not to mention having been a State trooper, working for the FBI, while designing bridges in his spare time! The result is utterly convincing - leaving the reader free to be propelled along by the multi-threaded plot, which has quite a few twists. One, in particular, catches you out completely; but there are others, almost as good, which lose nothing in their effectiveness from being less unpredictable. Trainman is just a cracking good read!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deutermann Engineers Railroad Thriller, January 7, 2000

By	Gerald S. Rosen (Pompton Lakes, N.J.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trainman (Hardcover)

From the first chapter, which deals with more detail than anyone should need to know about blowing up a bridge to the last climactic confrontation, this novel literally moves with the speed of a trainwreck. The identity of the terrorism as revenge culprit is well hidden and is not revealed until the final third of the book. The elements of political intrigue within the FBI, gender equity, and animosities between federal agents and local law enforcement personnel are woven together in what is a very interesting and highly entertaining story.