The Stranger on the Train

British author Taylor’s taut debut is a heart-stopper. One Sunday evening on a London Underground platform, single mom Emma Turner watches in horror as her one-year-old son, Ritchie, somehow gets on a train that leaves without her. Did someone snatch Ritchie? The police assigned to Emma’s missing person’s case have little sympathy. She has no family, few friends, and no connection with the boy’s father. Dirt poor, she’s overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising a child, the spawn of a quick fling. Worse, in a fit of desperation, she earlier confessed to her GP that she wished Ritchie were dead. So everybody doubts whether the tot was really kidnapped. But when the chips are down, with Ritchie really out of her life, Emma rises to the challenge of saving her son. Beginning with the gasp-inducing first chapter, readers won’t exhale until the end. [em]Agent: Marianne Gunn O’Connor, Marianne Gunn O’Connor Literary Agency. (May) [/em]