“The Green Train” is a thriller by Herbert Lieberman first published by Avon Books in 1986. Just before crossing the border into Finland, the passengers aboard what is dubbed “The Green Train” are delayed when Russian soldiers surround them and keep them just a few miles from freedom as they search for some classified documents that were stolen.
This is a novel that drags a little at times, although I did find that Lieberman has an engaging prose style. Some of the slowness is likely a consequence of having a pretty isolated setting. There are some interesting encounters between some of the passengers and a Russian colonel determined to root out the suspected spies.
I picked this novel up in a used bookstore in Colorado. I had never heard of Herbert Lieberman before, but I may be on the lookout for some of his other works. I don’t think he was really all that known, but he seems to have had a steady career. This just turned out to be a random discovery in the bookstore that was actually a bit more enjoyable than I anticipated.
I will next be reading another installment in the series featuring the shell-shocked yet persistent Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge in Charles Todd’s “The Gate Keeper”.
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