The Boy on the Train
Published on 7. October 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-917352-07-9 (ISBN)
Description
"Sinuously written, subtly subversive" - Beatrice Hitchman
Silently, digitally, a boy takes apart your family
Tom's a regular teenager - sullen, anxious, super-smart, feeling safe within his bedroom and wedded to his screen.
On a packed train, a London commodities trader gets under his skin.
The trader's got a fine wife, two kids, a yappy dog, big house, annual bonus. Tom hacks him. The trader's hardware becomes stuffed with dangerous, damaging images. Call it collateral damage.
Hacking is what Tom does. He's got control of the keyboards of key players in the fossil fuel industry. If he doesn't bring down the grid, who will?
Roads and trainlines lead the main players to a violent confrontation in the brutalist surrounds of London's Barbican Centre. Government agents work to prevent a global blackout. Tom's set to save the planet.
Who will win?
Silently, digitally, a boy takes apart your family
Tom's a regular teenager - sullen, anxious, super-smart, feeling safe within his bedroom and wedded to his screen.
On a packed train, a London commodities trader gets under his skin.
The trader's got a fine wife, two kids, a yappy dog, big house, annual bonus. Tom hacks him. The trader's hardware becomes stuffed with dangerous, damaging images. Call it collateral damage.
Hacking is what Tom does. He's got control of the keyboards of key players in the fossil fuel industry. If he doesn't bring down the grid, who will?
Roads and trainlines lead the main players to a violent confrontation in the brutalist surrounds of London's Barbican Centre. Government agents work to prevent a global blackout. Tom's set to save the planet.
Who will win?
Reviews / Votes
"Sinuously written, subtly subversive: a love song to our whirling, chilling, digital world. Will keep you on the edge of your (train) seat long after you've missed your stop..." - Beatrice Hitchman, author of All of You Every Single One"A fast-paced, deliciously twisty tale" - Sarah Birch in The Hackney Citizen
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More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
345 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-917352-07-9 (9781917352079)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Martin Goodman has tackled the world in a thrilling range of fiction and nonfiction. His subjects are self-experimenting scientists and spiritual masters, shamans and Nazi war criminals, eco-warriors and world-class musicians, vampires and Tibetan lamas. His books have won awards, with settings that span the globe. More and more they wave red flags about ecological crises. His recent My Head for a Tree tells the story of the Bishnois, a community in India who fight with their lives to protect nature. He is emeritus professor at the University of Hull, an editor for Conservation Times, and shares a life with his husband between London, Los Angeles and the South of France.