Cover image of

The Boy on the Train

By Martin Goodman

Cover image of

Category: All Books, Crime, Thriller & Suspense, Fiction, LGBTQ+

Formats available: Paperback, Ebook

Pages: 320

Publication date: 07/10/25

ISBN-13: 9781917352079

ISBN-10: 1917352077

ā€œSinuously written, subtly subversive: will keep you on the edge of your (train) seatā€ – Beatrice Hitchman, author of All of You Every Single One

ā€œA fast-paced, deliciously twisty taleā€ – Sarah Birch in The Hackney Citizen

 

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

Who will outsmart whom in the age of cyber-intelligence? This makes for a great plotline in the new thriller by Martin Goodman. The Hackney-based author has wormed his way inside the head of Tom, a seventeen-year-old hacker who is eager to take on the Big Coal that is doing us all such catastrophic damage. In a chance encounter, Tom meets Steve, a commodities trader who specialises in… you guessed it: coal. The stage is set for an enthralling narrative that draws in fellow hacker Mel along with a cast of characters from the highest reaches of corporate and state power. Greed is set against cunning, to wonderfully edifying effect, as algorithms spar off against each other. Lest this sound overly cerebral, be reassured that there is also much action and psychological nuance. The fast-paced drama culminates in a charged scene at the Barbican where raw force prevails over intellect. But Tom has secrets up his sleeve that don’t play out until the end of this deliciously twisty tale.

- Sarah Birch in The Hackney Citizen

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

Welcome to Barbican Press

Martin Goodman

Martin Goodman was born in Leicester and grew up in Loughborough, attending the grammar school there, before spinning off into the world. Early career thoughts were of being a chef or a lawyer, and indeed when studying English at Leeds University he almost switched to Law. A comparison of the reading lists held him back. Later he took a teaching degree in English as a Second Language, and early years saw him teaching English overseas to earn money and experience, and then spending it all on time to write before …

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New Title and Cover Reveal

We’re excited to share our newest title releasing this autumn! Watch the video below to see the cover reveal… https://barbicanpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/The-Boy-on-the-Train-Cover-Reveal.mp4