Wow...what a fantastic book.
The characters are amazing and I especially enjoyed Tangerine and Lemon!
Which considering this is a fast paced action thriller with killers for hire in really made this book stand out for me.
Throw in 'Prince' a teenage psychopath who has kidnapped another retired killer for hire and has threatened to kill his son if he doesn't do anything he says just makes it perfect.
Nanao aka the Ladybird is also on the train, all he has to do is take the suitcase that Tangerine and Lemon have and get off the train at the next stop. Simple you my think but Nanao is known to have the worse luck in the world and boy does he.
Can't wait to read more from this author.

A good thriller, good character's and well paced. Five killers in one place who will come out on top? This book will not disappoint.

Full of dark humour, this is an enjoyable romp on a train. There are numerous killers on a train on a journey that takes just a few hours. There are twists and double crosses galore, and some of the ideas are a lot more believable than others. Nanao is my favourite, if you can have a favourite killer. He has lots of luck, all of it bad, and personifies the adage - if it can go wrong it will. At times it feels as though the author is throwing in everything he can think of in the way of plots. This is an interesting read, my only disappointment was that there are a couple of unanswered questions in the ending. However, it’s still worth reading.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Good fun. A bit pulp fictionish if you know what I mean. Not read a Japanese thriller before and it was quite good. I wouldn’t normally choose a book like this but I really think it was worth it.

Sadly not my type of book and I did not finish as I felt that although the plot was different it just dragged on and I lost the will to read. Perhaps being unable to identify with the book maybe that something was lost in the translation.

Although it is marketed as a thriller, I would be more inclined to describe this book as a high-octane farce. As all of the killers on the train are confined to a small space, they have to plan their next moves very carefully, and there ensues a serious of encounters reminiscent of a classic bedroom farce. There is violence and gore aplenty, but also wit, charm and a sense of fun to the novel which sets this book apart from most thrillers being published at the moment.

The plot itself is clever, and will keep you guessing until the very end, but you'll have fun along the way. Anyone who enjoyed Convenience Store Woman will enjoy the way in which the characters are crafted with attention to detail and a typically dark Japanese sense of humour.

This one is a fast moving, propulsive thriller that takes place almost entirely on a bullet train out of Tokyo. It’s full of twists and double crosses, and plays out like one of those hip 90s indie crime films that came in the wake of Tarantino’s initial success. It’s terrific fun, if more than a little daft - when you put it down you’ll stop and go “hang on a minute…”, but none of that matters when you pick it up again and continue racing through the pages. It also has that rarity in this genre, a satisfying ending.

This was a really well paced action story in the vein of something like a Vin Diesel film. It's completely implausible and very ridiculous but in the most fun and intentional way.

The characters were surprisingly distinct with different motivations and personalities and I actually quite liked the fruit "twins" and their relationship as well as Nanao and his bad luck.

It's hard to say much without spoiling anything but I got caught up in every twist and turn and couldn't stop reading.

I would say you can kind of tell this has been written by a man - you know what I mean, ladies - but it's not too bad. The treatment of a minor transgender character in here also rubbed me the wrong way but I have to probably attribute some of that to cultural differences.

Overall a great, engaging story and I will definitely be inclined to check out more from the author.

An addictive thriller with dark humour, I loved the book, and could not put it down until I had finished, it was brilliant. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me an advance reading copy.

Initially Bullet Train had be gripped, but as it progressed, it just felt so long. I loved the plot, almost like a locked room mystery but the comical parts just didn't land for me.

Bullet Train by multi-award-winning Japanese author Kotaro Isaka is a clever and original tale with a diverse mixture of criminals in violent competition for a case full of money on a train journey between Tokyo and Morioka. Very much in the vein of Lock,Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels or the script of an early Tarantino movie it's a darkly amusing tale with ongoing twists and a cast of truly oddball ,murderous characters. These include "The Prince",a psychotic and narcissistic schoolboy, Kimura the alcoholic ex-gangland heavy, Tangerine the intellectual and his Thomas the Tank Engine obsessed partner Lemon who are supposed to be guarding their boss's money and his son while failing dismally at both tasks . Then there's Nanoa ,the world's unluckiest criminal who turns into an efficient killing machine when in a violent situation.....and there are plenty of those in this book.
This is one of the most original and entertaining books I've read for a long time with the action never flagging and each of the main characters having an interesting back story and author Isaka exploring some quite deep psychological and moral themes through the voices of his characters amongst the mayhem.
I've read quite a few translated book from Japan in recent months and they're invariably quirky and a bit "different", this is no exception and I'm sure it will have the same success in translation (an excellent job by Sam Maliisa that really deserves a mention) as it has in Japan.

This is one of the most addictive thrillers I’ve ever read. It has a smart, cinematic style. While I was reading, I thought the book would make a great film. Other people obviously thought that too, because production on a film adaptation began in late 2020.

The story follows several shady characters as they travel on the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo. They find themselves in competition and apparently working for the same crime lord. In a race against time, they try to identify each other, work out what’s going on, and either work together or kill each other. The story is narrated in the third person, with some flashbacks to events leading up to this situation, but is mostly set in the tense environment of the train carriages. Unusually for a thriller, the characters are memorable and distinctive. There are the ‘fruits’: contract killers, intellectual Tangerine and his Thomas the Tank Engine-loving partner Lemon. There’s Kimura, ex-alcoholic and single dad. Nanao, unluckiest man in the world. The Prince, devious school student who thinks he can beat the adults. And a few others I can’t mention because of spoilers.

Amidst all the action, plotting and clever dialogue, there is time for philosophy, psychology and for discussions on the differences between generations. It’s an extraordinary reading experience which I’m sure never to forget.

Bullet Train was first published in Japan as Maria Bītoru in 2010. The English translation by Sam Malissa will be published on 1st April.

Thank you to the publisher Harvill Secker for the advance copy via NetGalley.

]NB. Review will be posted on my blog on 28th March 2021.

Shinkansen train from Tokyo and five vile criminals who fight for a suitcase full of money. But nothing goes as planned.

What an original novel! Exciting from beginning till end, characters are almost from one of Bulgakov's novel.

Brilliant and joy to read.

Professionals are meant to have a plan, their reputations depend on their successes and the community of killers know who are ones to fear and who to avoid, at all costs. But this train journey has more than its fair share of such unique individuals which is not a usual occurrence. It’s double cross aplenty with assassins with their own agendas losing control of every situation. Time is not on their side and never is the rest of the passengers. What will end first, the train journey or their lives?

When I had requested this book I was concerned that it would have potential to be a generic thriller going on the description. However, I was pleasantly surprised that it had so much humour and dark twists through the majority of the chapters. As I was getting further and further into the story, I knew it was something different and it was fantastic. It seemed very cinematic with the contained and sometimes claustrophobic drama of the train carriages and the heightened tension of the interactions of the various players as they tried to work out what is going on and who they could trust. It will be interesting to see if the soon-to-be made film version actually retains the vital elements of the book or if they water it down and gut the spirit of the story so it becomes that dull generic thriller that I dreaded. I really hope not as the characters were excellent, especially Lemon & Tangerine and the wicked humour of the situations just zinged off the page. I loved this book.

Bullet Train is a thriller with a dark comedy edge, about a train full of killers battling to make it to the end of the line. On the train from Tokyo to Morioka is Kimura, a man hunting revenge on a sadistic schoolboy, Satoshi, who threw his son off a roof and is also on the train. Unbeknownst to them, also on the train are killer duo Tangerine and Lemon, tasked with delivering a suitcase and a kidnapped son back to a famed gangster, and unlucky assassin Nanao, who is on a job to steal the suitcase. What unfolds as the train travels between the stations is a complicated web of double crossing, confusion, and violence.

This is a book with the vibe of darkly comic action film, especially with elements like the unluckiness of Nanao and constant assumption that Satoshi, aka The Prince, is an innocent schoolboy (he has the vibe of Five from Umbrella Academy), which makes it an enjoyable thriller about immoral people battling to survive. The narrative cuts between the main characters, sometimes jumping minutes back in time to give multiple perspectives, and this also gives it a cinematic feel. Despite being a long book, it is fast-paced with twists and tension leaving you wonder what could happen next and not sure who you should root for.

A 'locked train' thriller about killers fighting for their lives and a suitcase, Bullet Train is gripping book for fans of thrillers that don't quite take themselves too seriously and the kinds of films where gangsters and shady types find themselves all accidentally up against each other. It's not something I'd usually pick out to read, but I'm glad I did (on a whim because I've read some Japanese novels recently).