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The Man on the Train
ONE MAN IS ABOUT TO HAVE A MIDLIFE CRISIS
LIKE NO MAN HAS EVER HAD BEFORE.
BUT FOR HIS WIFE,
THE NIGHTMARE IS JUST BEGINNING…
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Linda Haley is awakened early one morning by two police officers at the door. She has no idea that her husband has been living a secret life during his daily commute into the city. Now Guy is the prime suspect in a brutal murder that could derail Linda’s high-powered career and may be connected to a cold case.
And Guy has disappeared.
With a warrant out for his arrest, Linda travels to the scene of a forty-year-old unsolved murder and a night of violence that shattered the serenity of a fishing hamlet on the eastern end of Long Island. Aided and abetted by an ex-cop who’s in love with her, she searches for evidence that could clear Guy’s name. But as the manhunt intensifies and she begins to uncover the shocking truth–and the past Guy has buried deep–Linda must decide if the stranger she married is innocent or guilty. And if he truly deserves to be saved.
Hurtling down the tracks like a runaway train, this Hitchcockian thriller careens from a bedroom community to the Hamptons to a suburban train station, where a killer hiding in plain sight waits to exact a final revenge.
Praise
“A mysterious woman on the train, a disappearing husband, and secrets from the past come together in this pulse-quickening ride. Babitt masterfully creates a narrative that explores the fragility of trust and poses the question of how well we really know those closest to us. The Man on the Train will keep readers guessing until the final, shocking reveal.”
—Liv Constantine, bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish
“Sharply plotted, deeply felt, The Man on the Train tells overlapping love stories exploded by murder. Fresh and surprising.”
—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author
“Right from the start, the reader is captivated by the escalating suspense of the story as it flawlessly seesaws between the present and the past. With intriguing twists and turns that leave the reader trying to catch up, Debbie Babitt creates a thrilling tale of deception, murder, cover-up, suspicion, and revenge. The Man on the Train is a page turner!”
—Montauk Sun
“Debbie Babitt’s prose is evocative…with a vivid sense of place. She has a real knack for authentic voices.”
—Criminal Element
“All couples have secrets… This book is about how you never leave your past behind… great twisting suspense and mystery that a broad range of readers should appreciate.”
—fiction-addiction.com (Store pick!)
“Debbie Babitt brings formidable storytelling talent to the game.”
—Jeffery Deaver, #1 International Bestselling Author
“Debbie Babitt is a born stylist. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.”
—William Bernhardt, bestselling author of The Last Chance Lawyer
EXCERPT
It was as if time had stopped when the body was dragged from the ocean.
The intervening years erased, the clock frozen on the moment that shattered the tranquility of their sleepy hamlet all those years ago.
Folks rushing to the beach the minute the news hit.
The onlookers gathering at the shoreline, awaiting their first glimpse of the victim, same as back then.
Not that everyone remembered.
Some folks had died. Or moved away. For those who remained, it was too long
ago, and memory not being what it is. Or ever was.
Stories changed. People changed. What happened back then filtered through the
distorted lens of grief.
Regret.
Anger.
And guilt.
Of course, there were differences between the two tragedies.
The time of year, for one thing.
Back in ’84, it was one of those nights you waited for all summer.
Stars filling the sky. The moon casting a shimmering golden light on the ocean.
Waves lapping gently on the shore, a perfect backdrop to the most anticipated event of the season. The beach packed with people, mostly teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. They were among the first to reach the scene.
In contrast, tonight was dark and cold.
No stars in the leaden sky, a harbinger of the storm predicted to arrive tomorrow.
The holiday season had just ended, leaving everyone with nothing to look forward to but a long, bleak winter.
That didn’t stop townsfolk from bundling up and coming out in droves, despite the inhospitable weather.
A hush fell over the crowd as the medical examiner made his lumbering way across the snow-covered sand. The same forensics expert who gave the official cause of death in the ’84 case, now four decades older and slowed by arthritis and gout.
Gasps of recognition went up and down the beach when the waterlogged corpse was laid on the sand and everyone got a look at the victim’s face.
A face many thought they’d never see again.
Which only deepened the mystery and set minds racing about the meaning of this shocking turn of events.
Questions once again on everyone’s lips.
Questions that had never been answered.
All these years later, no one really knew what happened up there.
The best anyone could say for sure was that when the night was over, somebody was dead.
And now death had claimed another one of their own.
The crowd parted to make way for the chief of police, who’d just pulled up in his four-wheel jeep.
In 1984, he’d been a wet-behind-the-ears sergeant who many had thought was in over his head. Community outrage pressuring him to make an arrest. Lacking the experience to deal with a violent crime in what had always been a peaceful fishing paradise. Before then, the worst crime that summer was someone stealing a bicycle off of someone else’s front porch.
A few pointed out that in the same year there was the tragedy of the four fishermen lost at sea after their boat went down, never to be found.
But that wasn’t murder, least as far as anyone knew. It wasn’t the deliberate and savage snuffing out of the life of one human being by another.
The murder was never solved.
Depriving the town of justice.
And closure.
Leaving a black stain on their community.
As the medical examiner and the chief of police conferred over the corpse, a silent question rose up from the crowd.
Would this new tragedy finally bring resolution?
Or bury the truth forever?