In Irish author Abbie Taylor's debut novel, The Stranger on the Train, single and somewhat reluctant mom Emma experiences a parent's worst nightmare. While she is struggling to load her stroller and bags onto a train in the London Underground one day, her one-year-old son, Ritchie, climbs into the car without her and the door closes. As the train pulls away, a woman on board indicates Emma should take the next train and get off at the next stop, where the woman will wait with Ritchie.
But both the woman and Ritchie disappear. The police doubt certain aspects of Emma's story, so she embarks on her own desperate search for Ritchie with the help of Rafe, a retired cop who wants to help unearth the truth.
Taylor's prose is engrossing, even though Emma is not an entirely sympathetic figure and her parenting skills are questionable. Here, the darker side of parenting is revealed through a single mother who occasionally does and says things (both to and about her son) that she later regrets. Some suspension of disbelief is required to accept a major turn in the plot, but there's subtle commentary on how authorities seem to doubt and dismiss Emma because she's a single mom on government assistance.
As Emma fights to get her son back, she realizes just how fiercely she loves him. Her terrifying ordeal becomes a journey not only toward reunion and the truth, but also toward embracing motherhood. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd