The Christmas Train

Here we have a delightful holiday love story with "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" written all over it. It has all of the ingredients: the lure and lore of transcontinental train travel; Christmas music; humor; romance; mystery; a huge snow storm (read "special effects"); a cast of pleasantly interesting characters; and an ending chock full of surprises. What's not to like?

The story itself has been well outlined by the Amazon.com reviewer, and it is a good story well told. It contains no foul language, no overt sex, and no violence. The novel's' secondary characters are almost uniformly well-intentioned, friendly, blessed with common sense and politically correct. (The workers on the train all work hard, love their jobs and always know what to do; the "wheelchair lady" has MS but "never lets it get her down" and "is full of good spirits despite her disability"; etc.; etc.) All of the secondary characters, that is, except for the lawyer who is utterly despicable, and who quickly gets his comeuppance!! The main characters, of course, have predictable minor flaws (like Tom Langdon's anger, which usually surfaces when an injustice is about to be done), but we never doubt that they are all fundamentally "good" people. In short, there is nothing in this novel that would ever initiate a "letter to the publisher" by a distraught reader (except, perhaps, by the Bar Association). Although none of this is bad in itself (this IS a Christmas story, after all), I found myself wishing that Tom had been more like Philip Marlowe and less like Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life". I think it would have made this a much more interesting story with a much more powerful ending.

However, I don't believe that this was ever meant to be a penetrating work of literature that would reveal surprising truths about the human condition. Rather, I think it was meant to be, and is, a light diversion that will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy; a Christmas cordial that is meant to be slowly sipped, enjoyed, and then reluctantly put aside. It is a real escape from what currently passes for "entertainment" on TV and in the movie theaters.

To use another metaphor, this is a sweet holiday bonbon!

If you are looking for a light, feel-good read that reaffirms the magic of Christmas and the fact that sometimes long-deferred dreams do come true, this is the book for you. Author David Baldacci shows us quite clearly that it's not the destination that matters, but how you enjoy the journey.

Tom Langdon sets off on a cross-country train trip at Washington, D.C. and plans to arrive in L.A. for Christmas. Having reached middle age, it is time to do some soul-searching and rethinking of life goals, and what better place than the peaceful journey a train can provide. As one of the characters so succintly tells our hero, "....most folk who ride trains could care less where they're going. For them it's the journey itself and the people they meet along the way...they're looking for some friendship, a warm body to talk to. People don't rush on a train, because that's not what trains are for."

What Tom does encounter is a less than peaceful situation plus a mix of interesting characters. A Christmas Eve avalanche, an on-board wedding, people who are not who they say they are, a ghost from the past, and a lot of Amtrak trivia will keep you interested as you travel cross-country on Tom's trip of self-examination. Some may call the ending predictable, but a very clever twist took me completely by surprise and made the journey even more interesting in retrospect.

This isn't great literature but it is an entertaining holiday read that makes this reader want to call Amtrak immediately to board the next train out of town. Great fun that I'm glad I found under my Christmas tree this year!

...maybe it's not nutritiously substantial, but it sure is tasty!

David Baldacci's The Christmas Train is a light-hearted tale that clips along at a jolly pace, much like the vehicle that carries its eclectic cast of characters. The ensemble hails from just about every temperment and every walk of life, and though they're not terribly "deep", they are interesting to watch. Much like one's travels in reality, Baldacci brings the group (with us) together, allows us to see their initial facades, and in some cases digs a little deeper. For spice, he adds a splash of intrigue to the story in the form of a none-too-complicated mystery. It's a fun diversion, but the story's focal point remains interpersonal interplay.

One truly refreshing aspect of this book is the complete absence of any objectionable material - the book could be easily rated G (or stretch to a PG for one honeymooning couple). It's nice to know there are authors who can write an enjoyable novel without heavy doses of profanity, sex, or violence. Who wants to read about that stuff at Christmastime anyway? ;-)

Worth the ride, The Christmas Train provides the reader with a warm holiday treat!

This is a little gem of a book written by thriller master David Baldacci. It tells the story of a reporter who is making a cross-country train journey during the holiday season in an attempt to retrace the steps of his ancestor Mark Twain, and also because he just happens to be barred from flying in the United States due to an altercation with airline security personnel. (For some odd reason, I thought this part of the story was very funny.) Along the way, he meets a cast of strange and likeable characters and has quite a few adventures of his own, including meeting up with his one lost love.

This book had a lot of great details about train travel -- I felt like I was right there on the journey with him. However, as another reviewer has stated, the ending was stretching it just a little bit for me. It just seemed too fantastic to be true. That being said, I did enjoy this book a lot. It was a nice holiday diversion for me -- one I would recommend reading while curled by the fire sipping hot chocolate, eggnog, coffee, or whatever your favorite Christmas beverage might happen to be!

We all have things we enjoy at Christmas - watching a particular Christmas movie, decorating a tree or other traditions. Reading The Christmas Train will be one addition to my Christmas traditions that will truly put me "in the mood" for Christmas. The story is wonderfully told, with likable, realistic characters that become dear and familiar by the end of the book, with action, humor, mystery, suspense, and tears that kept me completely enthralled from the beginning of the book to its stunning end. Some books you can predict what will happen next. Not this one! Though the reader may have hopes for what will happen next, there are no guarantees, and there are many wonderful surprises in store! Tom Langdon, an investigative reporter who has covered wars, won 2 Pulitzer prizes and has reverted to writing fluff because he is so depressed about not being able to change the world for the better, has decided to take a train trip across the U.S. to fulfill one of his dead father's requests, and to meet his girlfriend Lelia in LA. Tom doesn't really love Lelia; he just has found a comfortable companionship with her - they don't even live together, they just see each other every now and then. Tom's true love, Eleanor (Ellie), has been lost to him some years ago, and Tom isn't really sure what happened between the two of them - he just knows that not marrying Ellie was the worst mistake of his life. Imagine his surprise, then, to discover that Eleanor is on the same train as he is, working as a film writer for Max Powers, a very successful movie director. When Max and Tom bump into one another, Max has a great idea - he suggests that Tom and Eleanor work on writing the "train movie" together. Eleanor wants no part of it, but Max Powers always gets his way! Then the train becomes trapped by an avalanche, and there is such a severe winter storm going on that the more than 300 passengers worry what will happen when the train's fuel and food runs out. Who will rescue the trapped train and all the people traveling with it? An excellent, excellent holiday (or anytime) read, full of love, hope, good cheer, and miracles.

Tom Langdon, a globetrotting journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, is forced by circumstances to take a transcontinental trip aboard Amtrak to meet his current girlfriend Lelia Gibson in LA for the Christmas holidays. Tom's family connection to Mark Twain had inspired him to become a writer, and according to legend, Twain had taken a similar trip with the intent of writing a story based on his encounters across the country. Thus, Tom decides to use this trip to write the story Twain had never completed and fulfill one of the last requests of his father before his death. Always in the background of Tom's consciousness is what he now regards as the major mistake of his life, that he never proposed to his true love and fellow foreign correspondent Eleanor Carter, with whom he has now lost touch but still cares for deeply.

The first section of the book consists of the segment of the journey from DC to Chicago aboard The Capitol Limited. Readers are introduced to the major characters and the outline of the limited plot and interrelated mysteries become clear. We also get a lesson in intercity train travel and learn that this will be a combination holiday story, romance and mystery as well as an advertisement for Amtrak and the joys of leisurely travel and seeing America rather than overflying the country to simply speed to your destination. We meet the eccentric Agnes Jo, who Tom believes is hiding some secret: Steve and Julie, who are planning a marriage on the train since their parents disapprove of their relationship; Amtrak employee stalwarts Regina and Tyrone, and numerous other characters where it is not clear who has a bit part and who is central to the plot. But on a train you have time to get to know all of them.

The second section of the book consists of the trip aboard The Southwest Chief from Chicago to LA. Here the plot thickens, the action quickens, the mystery deepens, and the passengers and crew are threatened by potential tragedy. My use of stereotypes in my description is intentional; Baldacci cleverly uses stereotypical characters such as Lelia, the actress whose fame derives from her role as the voice of Cuppy the Beaver, Gordon Merryweather, the despicable class action attorney who soon gets his comeuppance and Max Price, the famous movie director who is accummulating material for his next epic involving train travel, to quickly get us involved with the story without the necessity for a lot of background. At the same time he lets us know that this will be a fun trip of the sort many of his readers have probably dreamed about taking.

All the usual adjectives apply - heartwarming, charming, schmaltzy, romantic and just plain fun. It is a very fast read, a great story for a long afternoon or evening in front of a Christmas fireplace or a short trip; ironically much too brief for a long train ride but about right for a high speed Acela ride between NYC and DC or Boston. This book, along with WISH YOU WELL, shows the versatility of the author, but I certainly hope that he has not completely abandoned the action-adventure-mystery genre. While it is hard to write a suspenseful Christmas story since an ending of renewed hope, forgiveness and the fulfillment of dreams is almost essential to the feelgood spirit of such a story (as well as its commercial success, even for Scrooge and the Grinch), Baldacci does include enough plot twists and character misdirection so that fans of his previous stories will recognize his hand at work here. Finally, the ending was very clever, and helps renew our faith in Santa Claus. I debated my rating and some readers may think five stars is overly generous, but as I completed my review I was reminded how thouroughly I had enjoyed the book and how it had completely lived up to my expectations. Thus, I am convinced that Baldacci has accomplished his goal as an author, and felt that such a feat deserved at least close to five stars. This book cannot and should not be compared to ABSOLUTE POWER or SAVING FAITH, but has to stand on its own and be rated on that basis.

I agree with the reviewer from Los Angeles. This is clearly a "pop it out and it'll make money for me" book. The story line does "sound" interesting, but the writing was woefully, almost laughably bad. I certainly don't think David Baldacci is nearly as poor an author as this effort indicates. I do, however, think it's insulting to the reader who relies on his past efforts and his reputation for him to have put forth such a poor effort. There are only two good things to say about The Christmas Train: the Amtrak information was interesting and the book was blessedly short.

This book the story of reporter Tom Langdon, who, having been banned from flying in the continental US after an unfortunate contretemps in security, takes the train from Washington, DC, to LA to be with his current girlfriend who he doesn't have much of an emotional attachment to. His great love was Eleanor Carter, a fellow reporter, who walked out on him in Tel Aviv many years earlier--and who, coincidentally, turns up on the same train with a movie producer and his assistant, a pair of lovebirds who plan to be married enroute, a priest, a rather overweight woman who's friends with all the train staff, plus a hoard of friendly train employees and unusual train travelers. I notice other reviews here decry this novel as not being like Baldacci's other books, as being a commercial for Amtrak, for being like a romance novel. Folks, did you even read the description of this book? It is a romantic story, and it is an unabashed paean to the good old days of train travel--what did you expect in a book taking place on a train with a plot about a man writing about the romantic side to train travel, a commercial for Delta? I won't claim this book is perfect. There are almost too many eccentric characters--doesn't anyone normal travel by train? (I guess those are the people we don't get names for, who are also on the train; they're too normal to figure in the story.) Also, there's not one Amtrak person who doesn't like working on the train (or if there is, we don't meet them). This is sort of a book version of a good old Hollywood Christmas film like WHITE CHRISTMAS and should be savored as such; if sentiment isn't your bag, pick up a Jack Higgins thriller. But please don't criticize THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN for being something it's not supposed to be. BTW, several folks comment that "Mark Twain is mentioned several times for no reason." In your haste to read this book looking for murder and mayhem, you completely missed the explanation that Tom Langdon was related to Olivia Langdon, Twain's wife.

This is no masterpiece you will need to own or to read a second time, but it is worth reading once if you are a romantic at heart, or are curious about what a cross-country train trip is like these days. Tom and Eleanor are the main characters, lovers who broke up several years before the book opens, and who are reunited (to the astonishment of each) on an Amtrak adventure. There are fascinating details about how the passenger train crews do their jobs, and how train travel, usually safe, can have its perils. Many of the secondary characters are delightful. The novel ends with a couple of surprises I did not see coming, which is always nice.

I've been reading a lot of espionage and fast-paced novels lately. When December hit, I thought it a good time for a change for a bit. I decided to pick this up for a nice quick read. I'm pretty thankful I did.

In all honesty, when reading this book, I found myself jumping on-line and seeing how practical the prices were for train rides! What this book did for me, was slow me down a little bit and tell me to remember to enjoy everything thrown my way.

I liked the main character, Tom Landon, and found this a very cute read. The character development wasn't bad, and the pace was steady. The pace of some of the dialogue was a bit wavy, but on the other hand, I found myself letting out audible chuckles here and there.

I have no real complaints about this book, and would recommend it to anybody looking to slow down the pace of there lives and have them look around.