This Train

This knotty heist novel from Grady (Six Days of the Condor) opens on a 47-hour train ride from Seattle to Chicago, where hackers are conspiring to make off with millions of dollars in “expired” cash that’s set to be incinerated at the Federal Reserve. The large cast includes a coder trying to keep the grift together, a banker and his murderous wife, a perfect couple who aren’t so perfect, a yippie dog and its protective owner, and numerous others spread across a slew of plotlines that sometimes intersect but tend to fade from mind as the train diligently plods along its route. Grady spins from character to character, event to event without much in the way of exposition or buildup of the emotional suspense one would expect from this ticking clock of a premise. Tangents on famous Americans and landmarks that have little or nothing to do with the characters or plot pepper the book, which often feels like an indie film trying to obscure its lack of cohesion with circular dialogue and the occasional glimmer of sex. Readers will struggle to stay on board. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management. (May)