The Wheel Spins (1936) by Ethel Lina White #20booksofsummer24

🚄 Iris Carr is a spoiled English girl who is on holiday with her friends in Croatia. They are the type of noisy and selfish tourists that annoyed others. When her friends left the country, Irish stayed behind. Now she'd had enough with this foreign country, and can't wait to go back alone to England by train. At the station, however, she's knocked down by something or other, and is unconscious. Fortunately she's revived just in time to catch the train anyway. We never know what had struck Iris down at the station, was it really sunstroke as she thought, or other more sinister cause? She didn't know, and we don't know either.

🚄 Iris found herself sharing a compartment with a snobbish foreign lady - a baroness - and her compatriots. Fortunately there was another English lady, a plain looking spinster called Miss Froy, who had worked as governess in the baroness' house. She's the type that is chattering all the time. Irish found her irritating, but Miss Froy was very kind to her. As Iris' headache got worse, she took a pill and was asleep. When she woke up, Miss Froy was nowhere to be found - she's just vanished.

🚄 Iris experienced a nightmare since then, since neither passengers nor crews acknowledged that a spinster governess had ever boarded the train. Was Miss Froy only Iris' imagination or hallucination, due to her sunstroke? For if she does exist, where would she's been hiding on board a running train that long? Suicide was impossible because Miss Froy was the most cheerful person you might imagine, plus she's been longing to come home to her lovely parents and dog whom she missed so much. But if not voluntarily, it means something sinister - a lot sinister - was happening here.

🚄 Even the two English men Iris got acquainted with and were gentlemanly enough to try helping her, were at last skeptical too. Now it's up to Iris alone to solve the mystery and letting free Miss Froy from whoever's been capturing her and, no doubt, wanted to get rid of her. The question is, can Iris do that, what with her headache, self doubt, and psychological strain?

🚄 This is a psychological thriller, rather than mystery. And thus, if you are focusing in the denouement, you might be a bit disappointed. For until the end, I'm still in the dark to what or who really struck Iris at the station. Is it sunstroke as Iris thought? And what crime did Miss Froy had inadvertently witnessed to cause her enemy to get rid of her? No, in term of solving a mystery, the ending isn't satisfying at all. But as a psychological thriller, it was superb! I also loved the little back story of the Froys, a simple, loving, and happy family of an old father and mother, and a faithful dog. They reminded me a little of my parents. That's how I imagined their excitement were whenever I went abroad (very rarely, but still).

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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20 Books of Summer 2024

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