BEST BOOKS FOR A TRAIN JOURNEY

Highsmith is the undisputed master of the psychological thriller – it’s no surprise this was adapted into a film by Hitchcock. Two men meet on a train and decide that each will kill the other’s nemesis: with no motive, surely no one will suspect them?

Nicholls is a warm, humorous and excellent writer, particularly good on observations about relationships. This contemporary novel centres on a budget family holiday around Europe in the wake of a wife’s declaration that she is going to leave her husband.

First appearing in 1851 as a series of stories for a magazine, Gaskell’s poignant novel is set in a small town in the north of England, its residents afraid of the migrants and breakdown in law and order that they believe the railway from Manchester will bring.

Henry Pulling and his septuagenarian aunt meet at his mother’s funeral, where she persuades him to abandon suburbia for a rackety adventure from Paris to Istanbul and Paraguay. A marvellous look at how the world was a century ago.

My debut novel and the first of six in a series opens with a real-life unsolved murder: that of Florence Nightingale Shore, a war nurse, who was left for dead on a train between Victoria and Hastings in January 1920.

Fellowes' latest novel The Mitford Scandal features scandalous affairs, political upheaval and murder. Available 26 September 2019.