A group of teenage students from Parker High School are taking an end-of-summer train trip from Chicago to San Francisco. This was planned so students could "see the country". Hannah is eager to go. Her parents have been to San Francisco many times and told her how much they loved the city. So Hannah, with many of her school friends, goes on board the train. One girl, Kerry, is told her luggage bag is way too big and it has to be kept in the baggage compartment. Angry, she goes to the compartment to get her bag. She comes back, pale and shaky. Hannah asks what's wrong. Kerry tells her that there's a coffin in the baggage compartment (which freaks them out.) Curious to know if the coffin is empty or filled they go to the compartment and notice a tag on the coffin. It seems one of their fellow classmates, nicknamed Frog, was killed/burned in a car crash recently, and it's his coffin/body in the baggage compartment. This puts a damper on the trip as Kerry and a few of their classmates recall how badly they treated Frog (Frederick Roger Drummond). As the trip progesses, many classmates are badly/viciously attacked. Hannah is starting to believe Frog isn't dead. One classmate thinks he saw Frog when the train stopped in Denver...

This was a fun, fast-paced, young-adult suspense story. I liked the train setting and I was curious to see what was going to happen next. An entertaining and enjoyable read. ( )

Old Children's Book. Liked it as a kid, but haven't read it in years. ( )

Spannend geschreven en het verhaal speelt zich op een aparte locatie af. Karakters zijn zorgvuldig afgewerkt ( )

November 27, 2002
The Train
Diane Hoh

Was feeling nostalgic for some teen thriller stuff. I didn’t read a lot of Diane Hoh when I was a teenager, and she doesn’t hold a candle to Christopher Pike (who does, though?). It’s obvious she tries to emulate Lois Duncan, but it’s not quite there. It’s not terrible, but geez, it’s just so dumbed down. I refuse to believe teenagers need to be spoken down to.

Anyway, a bunch of teenagers are on a class trip to San Francisco, via train, and of course there’s a killer on board! They think it’s “Frog”, a scapegoated kid who had died recently in a car crash, and whose body, they soon learn, is being transported on the same train they’re on, back to his parents in CA.

Hoh’s heroines leave something to be desired – they’re squeamish little scaredy-cats, and I just want to yell, “Grow some balls, will ya??? Quit screaming and panicking all over the place! Think Nancy Drew!” ( )