I have just returned from a holiday in Canada. One of the highlights of my trip was to spend four days on The Canadian travelling from Vancouver to Toronto. The Via Rail train took us through the Rocky Mountains, across the Prairies and over the Canadian Shield, showcasing the natural beauty of Canada's trees, rivers, fields and canyons. When I arrived in Toronto many of my friends jokingly asked whether there had been a murder on the train!
As children in the 1980s we had read Eric Wilson's novel
Murder on the Canadian (1976), the first in his Tom and Liz Austen mystery series, and my friends' question reminded me of the story. While in Toronto I picked up a copy of the book and refreshed my memory of this tale from long ago which I initially read when I was 9 or 10 years of age. Would the story still hold up forty years later?
Young Tom Austen is obsessed with the Hardy Boys and longs to be a detective. He boards the Canadian in Winnipeg bound for Vancouver to spend time with his grandparents. He is a solo traveller, but soon finds his frenemy Dietmar Oban is sharing his berth. The two boys are in search of adventure and their imaginations run away with them as they explore the train.
A scream brings Tom running down the corridor to the scene of a crime. A woman is dead and Tom reckons he can find the killer. Using the deduction skills he has learned from Sherlock Holmes and the Hardy Boys he looks for clues. As he begins to piece together what occurred he finds himself face-to-face with the killer!
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| The Canadian - Dome Car |
Murder on the Canadian is aimed at young adults. Not unlike an Agatha Christie novel, Wilson has used the confined space of the moving train to his advantage in the plotting of this novel. Having been on The Canadian, I enjoyed Wilson's descriptions of the dome car and the dining car, which remain as they were half a century ago. Wilson has also filled the train with interesting passengers for Tom to encounter as he attempts to rule out suspects.
Revisiting this novel as an adult was a nostalgic experience. As a child Tom's adventures were thrilling, and he was a delightful protagonist with his quick wit and ability to get out of tricky situations. There is something very pure about Tom's naiveté. At only 122 pages, it is a quick and easy read.
This is the first of twenty books in the series, which includes Vancouver Nightmare (1978), Terror in Winnipeg (1979), The Lost Treasure of Casa Loma (1980), and Cold Midnight in Old Quebec (1989). I recall reading a couple of these in my childhood, before I moved on to the Choose Your Own Adventure series.
Ultimately, I would recommend this for young readers and found that it is still an exciting story all these years later. For older readers, I would highly recommend travelling on The Canadian - it is an unforgettable journey!
