Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The 10:12 by Anna Maloney

 

The 10:12 by BAFTA winner Anna Maloney is scheduled for release in the US on 20 October 2026. It was released in January 2026 in the UK. An original and thought-provoking story, it relates the hijacking of a train near Manchester and its aftermath in chilling and realistic detail.

Art instructor Claire Fitzroy is one of the passengers who fought back against the hijackers. While many hailed her as a hero, others objected to a gray-haired woman taking an aggressive stand against a group of men who threatened harm to her and the rest of the travelers on the train. After the trial, she decides to document her experience to set the record straight. The book purports to be her working final draft with notes from her editor, text messages, emails, quotes from testimony transcripts, and snips from newspaper articles.

In the second half of the book Claire became obsessed with the ideological and political beliefs driving the hijackers, seeking to understand how those philosophies radicalized the young men into acting as they did, which worried the Secret Service agents assigned to the case. They feared Claire was attracting an element of danger she did not fully understand.

Inevitably perhaps in reading something terrifying but entirely believable like this, I asked myself if I could have stepped up the way Claire and other passengers did to prevent a wholesale loss of life. We never know what we are capable of but I suspect in my case the answer is no.

The structure of the book is impressively creative and the portrayal of the hijacking is frighteningly convincing, as is the unhinged social media response to Claire and the misogynistic expectations of older women. Anyone would find an experience like that traumatic and I found her need to process the event through knowledge of the drivers behind it credible.

Starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Reader reactions vary widely, many who listened to the audio version found the narrative hard to follow, which is understandable considering the way the story is presented in multiple forms.

 

·         Publisher: Harper Perennial

·         Date: October 2026

·         Pages: 320

·         ISBN-10: ‎1526689162

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1526689160

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Uk04zN

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.