What We're Reading: Judy

Super: a novel

by Jim Lehrer


Murder on the Orient Express is a classic movie from 1974 based on the novel of the same name by Agatha Christie. In Super, Lehrer takes the facts of a real train trip and embellishes them into a short novel. The Santa Fe railroad's Super Chief is a luxurious express train that gets its passengers from Chicago to Los Angeles in 39 hours. It was "The Train of the Stars" in the 1930s and 1940s. But in 1956 the train suffers from competition from the airplane and has few passengers. But death can visit the train as it speeds its was West. Is that Clark Gable boarding the train? The Super Chief makes a special stop in Kansas City to pick up former President Truman. In the middle of the night a gun shot is heard? The next morning a passenger is found dead. Was it suicide or a murder? Truman is accosted by a man hiding on the train. Every passenger has their own story and reasons for riding the Super. Just like the Agatha Christie original, you will never believe what can happen on a train!