When the person you love most in the world dies, it stays with you for the rest of your life. Whenthat person is brutally murdered with no explanation, it fundamentally changes who you are atyour core. The loneliness, confusion, and anger fuel your nightmares and consume your being.With nothing else to lose, how far would you descend into the twisted pit of madness anddespair to uncover the truth?
Jay Sigler is a new powerhouse to the horror genre.
This book came highly, highly recommend to me by Justin M. Woodward, author of Tamer Animals. He was adamant I should read it, that I’d love it and that Sigler’s debut release would be something I’d enjoy. So off of his recommendation, I bought it. And then like so many other books I snagged last year, it became buried in my TBR.
When 2019 rolled around, I realized I needed a change. I had too many good books not getting my attention because they weren’t on my main page of my kindle. So I made a point of creating a spreadsheet and putting my TBR into an order, making sure to balance it out with older purchases and recent purchases. And I made sure to put Train Thoughts near the top.
Now I can say, I regret the fact that I didn’t drop everything and read this immediately when I purchased it. Sigler has teased a few new releases are coming soon, and I can assure you that when they come out, I won’t be making this mistake again. Sigler is a massively talented writer and I wouldn’t be surprised if we even see a screen play in the future from him. He has a large cinematic scope to his prose and painted a vivid picture throughout.
Train Thoughts is a harrowing tale of grief, depression and a man grasping at the frayed straws of his sanity.
We open up, learning that the main character’s wife has died. A brutal murder occurred which he discovered. Now his day has descended into two parts – the work day and the home night. The home night is filled with visions and nightmares, what if’s and what could have been’s. So to combat the horror growing within his mind, the main character focuses on his work day – more specifically his commute to and from work. He realizes that the same group of people ride the train each day and sit in the same places and through eaves dropping, the main character creates scenarios around them. This is people watching to a sociopathic extreme.
It’s also utterly fascinating and downright gripping.
As the plot speeds up and hurdles down the track, the third act of the book plays out with demented fervor and when the dust settles and the narrative has been wrapped up, you’ll be pleased as punch at how effectively Sigler held his cards close to his body. I didn’t see the ending coming, and when I thought back to the clues that Jay had peppered the story with, I still couldn’t believe at how effective he was at keeping the ending concealed.
This is a must read for folks looking for a psychological thriller. Full of minor characters that the author gives meaningful depth to, as well as a main character that’ll take you through the gamut of emotions.
Wow! Jay might be the next Bret Easton Ellis. This one had me hooked. It is visceral, dark, moody, and touches on real issues in clever ways. There were also some very quotable lines. My favorite being, “The shortest distance between my pain and redemption is a straight line.”
Fantastic horror/thriller.
TRAIN THOUGHTS is a fast-paced psychological thriller that pulls the reader into a world of paranoia and spiraling madness.
The book opens with our main character reeling from the violent death of his wife from an unknown attacker. His world slowly starts to fall apart as he falls into a pattern of grief and drink. His only daily refuge being the time he spends riding the train to work and seeing his “train friends”. But even that starts to crumble as a mysterious figure enters his life and turns his world and that of his “train friends” upside down. Could this mysterious newcomer be a danger to them all, and could he somehow be connected to the death of his wife?
Jay Sigler delivers a very impressive debut novel. I do have to say that if you are in a down mood, do not read this book. There is no happiness to be found here. The author gives us a main character that is suffering a tremendous loss and does not know how to deal with it. Alcohol becomes a escape method and begins to help unravel his life. Jay does a wonderful job of conveying the anguish of the main character, and later as the story progresses, how that changes to anger and violence. There are some horror elements to the story, and mostly appear in some very descriptive dream sequence. If you are a gore fan, these parts of the story will make you very happy.
There is very solid writing, and the pacing is well thought out. This is a very character driven story. You cannot help but feel sorry for the main character. The story moves along quickly and comes off delivering a truly surprising and shocking end.