Oedipus express

trains, trauma and detective fiction

Laura Marcus

pp. 201-221

in: Warren Chernaik, Martin Swales, Robert Vilain (eds), The art of detective fiction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

It is possible to buy a short thriller or detective story from vending machines in Paris railway and underground stations. A spokeswoman for the publisher, Editions de la Voute, said in early 1997, "the idea is just a rethink of the success of station and airport novels. Since commuter journeys tend to be short, we decided that none of our books should take more than one hour to read." The novel offered is changed every week, alternating between a new book and a reprint. The first offering in the Metro-Police series, as it is called, was Gerard Delteil's Le nouveau Crime de L"Orient Express, a new version of Agatha Christie's famous train-crime novel.