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.
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