Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Two Trains Running: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Two Trains Running: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Two Trains Running: A Novel
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    Two Trains Running: A Novel

    Written by Andrew Vachss

    Narrated by David Joe Wirth

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Electrifying, compelling, and ultimately terrifying, Two Trains Running is a galvanizing evocation of that moment in our history when the violent forces that would determine America's future were just beginning to roil below the surface.

    Once a devastated mill town, by 1959 Locke City has established itself as a thriving center of vice tourism. The city is controlled by boss Royal Beaumont, who took it by force many years ago and has held it against all comers since.

    Now his domain is being threatened by an invading crime syndicate. But in a town where crime and politics are virtually indivisible, there are other players awaiting their turn onstage. Emmett Till's lynching has inflamed a nascent black revolutionary movement. A neo-Nazi organization is preparing for race war. Juvenile gangs are locked in a death struggle over useless pieces of "turf." And some shadowy group is supplying them all with weapons. With an IRA unit and a Mafia family also vying for local supremacy, it's no surprise that the whole town is under FBI surveillance. But that agency is being watched, too.

    Beaumont ups the ante by importing a hired killer, Walker Dett, a master tactician whose trademark is wholesale destruction. But there are a number of wild cards in this game, including Jimmy Procter, an investigative reporter whose tools include stealth, favor-trading, and blackmail, and Sherman Layne, the one clean Locke City cop, whose informants range from an obsessed "watcher" who patrols the edge of the forest, where cars park for only one reason, to the madam of the county's most expensive bordello. But Layne is guarding a secret of his own, one that could destroy more than his career. Even the most innocent are drawn into the ultimate-stakes game-like Tussy Chambers, the beautiful waitress whose mystically deep connection with Walker Dett might inadvertently ignite the whole combustible mix.

    In a stunning departure from his usual territory, Andrew Vachss gives us a masterful novel that is also an epic story of postwar America. Not since Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest has there been as searing a portrait of corruption in a small town. This is Vachss's most ambitious, innovative, and explosive work yet.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 14, 2005
    ISBN9780739320150
    Unavailable
    Two Trains Running: A Novel

    Related to Two Trains Running

    Related audiobooks

    Thrillers For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Reviews for Two Trains Running

    3.5/5

    42 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Vachss proves once again that he is great at writing a good old-fashioned, crime noir story. However while I did enjoy the book, there were still some flaws and issues that I had which took away from the overall novel.The story, based in late 1959, involves Royal Beaumont, a self-professed hillbilly, who rules the town of Locke City with an iron fist. When the mafia start trying to muscle in on his business, Beaumont hires an outside enforcer who turns out to also be a great strategist. Throw into the mix some racial discord along with an Irish mob and corrupt FBI agents and you'll have all the pieces.The problem was that the final picture included a little too much. The social and business interactions of the various groups were already a bit stretched. Then when Vachss threw in a bunch of political positioning too, it became too much and things didn't seem to gel together. Motives of the different groups were never clear. I don't think they were too complex for me to understand; I never saw them as being clear. And then to make matters worse, too many of the characters all read the same. At least four characters could be described as criminals with a strong moral or sense of honor. The source of their morals differed (racial pride or tortured soul being the two major ones) but their dialogue was interchangeable. It made the story difficult and not ring out as true. All in all, Vachss has done a much better job.
    • 3/5
      Once a devastated mill town, by 1956 Locke City has established itself as a thriving center of vice tourism. The city is controlled by boss Royal Beaumont, who took it by force many years ago. He ups the ante by importing a hired killer, Walker Dett, a master tactician whose trademark is wholesale destruction.
    • 3/5
      I love Vachss's Burke novels, even though I had to stop reading them for a while after my kids were born (too disturbing). This one's a little bit different than the Burke books in that there are lots of characters and it's set in the recent past (1959). But it's typical of Vachss's other books in its lean prose, violence, atypical but powerful moral code, and unusual relationships. I don't think I'd say one "enjoys" a Vachss novel, but one does come away from them with a passion to do something about violence and evil.So, anyway, if you like Vachss, you'll probably like this book. If you can't handle dark and violent, you probably shouldn't read this one.
    • 2/5
      All I know about this book is that Martha Grimes said it's "Like a stick of dynamite tossed into hell." Well, actually, reading that quote again, she's actually talking about one of the characters in the book. All I have to say is that this is a pretty placid hell - not much of interest happens in this book. There are at least a dozen recurring characters and half a dozen different gangs or organizations fighting over various interests in the book - if only there was more actual action. Instead, it's talk here, go somewhere else, talk there, etc. etc. etc. I wouldn't mind if the plots were coherent or even relevant, but they're just not, and the whole thing fizzles out like someone cut the fuse. Vachss has written far better books than this.