The story of a mother, her son, a locked room and the outside world.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Europe is racing towards the future. Steam travel is the emblem of progress; industry and invention are creating ever greater wealth and ever greater deprivation; and on an autumn day in 1895 a young woman determined to make her mark on history boards the Granville to Paris Express with a bomb.

With her travel the train crew and her fellow passengers: the men who run the engine, who have built a life together away from their wives; a little boy travelling alone for the first time; a ...