The Great Train Robbery

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

     A friend at work lent me this book a long time ago and I finally got around to reading it. It's the perfect kind of book to read on my lunch break at work. Crichton's intelligent story telling kept me interested, and the short chapters made me feel like I was making progress.
     The story is set in mid nineteenth century London, and is full of colorful characters, scallawags and buffoons alike. Crighton's digressions are like little historical nuggets. They enlighten, inform and entertain. The story is told from the point of view of the criminals. They come across as smarter than the cops, and their victims; however they make mistakes also. The tale unfolds as a comedy of errors, although there is nothing innately funny about a train robbery.
     The colorful language, jargon and criminal slang of the Victorian period sometimes leaves the reader thing, 'What?!'. Crighton finds ways to translate so that one don't lose the thread of the story while at the same time keeping it moving forward. It's like listening to people talk in a foreign language, but that language is English.
     I would definitely like to read another Crighton novel. I picked up a copy of The Terminal Man at a recent library book sale. Now I have to return the copy of TGTR after a few years, and a little dog-eared, but I enjoyed it finally.

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