To be honest, I’m not sure whether 6:40 to Montreal is a bad book, or if I’m just deeply annoyed with the ending.
Multiple things can be true at the same time, of course, but I like to go into a review with a clear head and pure motives. Writing fiction is hard, and I myself can’t do it. Trust me, I’ve tried. There will be no snarking here for the sake of scoring points or looking clever. Just sound advice on whether or not you should read it.
The problem is I’m still not sure what to think, so I’m putting the ball in your court.
“Train Wreck” by yeahbouyee is licensed under CC BY 2.0 
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Agatha has written a bestselling thriller, but she can’t seem to get cracking on her next book. Teddy, her husband, gives Agatha what appears on the surface to be a very thoughtful gift: a train ticket to Montreal. His reasoning is that it’s a long train trip with spotty wi-fi, and she’ll be able to do nothing but write for hours.
For reasons we will find out later, Agatha finds this incredibly irritating. Still, off she goes to board the train where she finds her carriage occupied by, among other things, a former co-worker, Cyanne. Cyanne believes Agatha used her life story in her bestselling novel, and hasn’t forgiven Agatha for it. Quite the opposite in fact.
So, awkward, but manageable. Until the murders start.
It’s pretty clear Jurczyk admires Agatha Christie, and I’m going to give her points for taking classic mystery stuff and twisting it into a thriller that had my jaw dropping every time the stakes got higher. The stakes got so high at one point, however, that–knowing FULL WELL genre fiction is not required to be factually accurate about stuff–I had to research whether or not a specific plot point could actually have happened the way it was written (answer = yes and no – it’s complicated).
You could argue that the book did its job, which was to keep me hooked until the end to find out how in the world this could all wrap up with a bow. The problem was the bow, which, even allowing for an incredible suspension of disbelief, just didn’t work. And while I’m not a prudish person in the slightest, the ending also gave me the ick. Even with a wide variety of kinks and preferences out there in the world, some things are simply Not Sexy, end of story.
Maybe that was the point? Ugh, I just don’t know.
I went with the two-star rating because while I love a good plot twist, this one was a little too twisted for me, and I feel really let down. I hate when I get invested in something that then doesn’t stick the landing.
But in the interest of fairness, I think you should go read it anyway, especially if you tend to like thrillers and suspense. Up to the point of confusion, it was a really good story, and the fact that I’m still thinking about it several days later is a testament to Jurczyk’s storytelling abilities.
So, recommended, I guess? After all, who doesn’t love a good trainwreck?
