I bought Night train From Prague  by Cheryl Harlick to read on my own night train to Prague, thinking it would be a good match.  Not for me, though.  She has conceived an interesting plot of a Czech resistance fighter during WW II coming out of the mountains and hiding with compatriots in Prague — to do what I can’t tell you. I couldn’t get past chapter 11, page 96. The English is by turns so awkward and undeveloped.  It’s a bit like going to a young musician’s first recital — better than many could do but not ready for public display.

If sentences like the following don’t bother you then you’ll be caught up in the story.  If they do, then be warned.

“Silence punctuated the impact of what the man did for his neighbor. Hans held his words back. They would never equal the deed of the old man for his neighbor.”

“Soon they were all quiet, only the sounds heard were those made from eating.”

“Other times his inexperience took from their energy when Hans or Mischa had to stop to educate Karl with an explanation.”

These are random examples pulled from leafing through the early pages, and only indicative. The jacket tells us Harlick has a background in engineering and that she lives in Seattle. Perhaps she spent her early years with engineering formulas and text-talk and not with great literature. Or, this could well be the English of a non native speaker or a poorly done translation. (At the very least it’s  a testimony to the importance of a good editor.) Since no publisher information is listed it’s fair to assume it is self published and without professional literary guidance. Too bad. A good story not told well

I left my copy on the train as we got to Prague.  Maybe it will be the right book for another.