Derailed

Summary (from the publisher): Every day Charles Schine rides the 8:43 to do the job he has done for over a decade in a New York advertising agency. With a wife and an ill child who depend on him, Charles is not a man who likes changes or takes risks ... until he is late for his regular train - and sits down across from the woman of his dreams.

Her name is Lucinda. Like Charles, she is married. Like Charles, she takes the train every day to work in New York City. Her train is the 9:05, and tomorrow she will be on it again - and so will Charles. For there is something about Lucinda, the flash of thigh beneath her short skirt, the way every man on the train is eyeing her, something about this time of the morning that will make Charles take a chance he shouldn't take, break a vow he shouldn't break, and enter a room he should never enter.

In a matter of days, a flirtation turns to a passion, and Charles and Lucinda are drawn into the dark side of the American Dream. In a matter of weeks, Charles's life is in shambles. A man is dead. A small fortune is stolen. Charles's home is violated and everything violently spirals out of control.

But Charles is about to discover that once you leave the straight and narrow, getting back on track is the most perilous journey of all. And for Charles, that journey - of lies, terror, and deception - has just begun.

Review: In essence, Derailed is the story of an affair gone wrong. A rather average husband and father, Charles meets Lucinda on the train and is sucked into a torid affair. Yet when they finally venture to a hotel room, a man follows them, beats Charles up, robs them, and rapes Lucinda. In the aftermath, Charles is blackmailed, a man is killed, and his family is threatened. Yet was Lucinda who she really claimed to be?

If I had to select one word to describe this novel, it would be contrived. Or implausible. The plot was too far-fetched and I was unable to suspend my disbelief. I was further irritated by the complete lack of characterization of every character besides Charles. Every character is one thing - Lucinda is sex, Deanna is devoted, his daughter Anna is ill. It was disappointing. Charles, himself lacks character development for the most part. But of what I do know about him, I don't believe this tale would happen to him. He's too sensible, too loyal, too average. He would have called the police. He would not create a new identity. Also - that bomb would not have gone off. I sort of felt as though Charles was recounting a dream to the reader, in which he is suffering from severe delusions of grandeur.

I haven't seen the movie based on this novel, nor do I want to after reading this. And I can't figure out why they wanted to make this into a movie. Even the great plot twist is just not that twist-y.

I will say I was impressed by the frame story of this novel, which begins after the main story has concluded. Charles is teaching english to inmates and one begins writing a third person narration of a story of a man on a train. But it's Charles' story. Someone from his past is threatening him by feeding him his own bio. And eventually he takes over and begins to tell his own story in first person. It was a really interesting and unusual introduction and I applaud the originality.

Stars: 2