From the author of The Restraint of Beasts--hailed by Thomas Pynchon as a "comic wonder" and shortlisted for the prestigious Booker and Whitbread Prizes--a novel that proves Magnus Mills to be the master of darkness comical.

Told with insidiously beguiling deadpan charm, All Quiet on the Orient Expressgives us the story of an itinerant odd-jobber--our narrator--watching the dregs of the summer run out in a run-down campground in England’s Lake District, and waiting to set off for the East. ("East. You know, Turkey, Persia, and then . . . India.") Quiet, unassuming, hardworking, he doesn’t seem like the adventurous type, but traveling to the Orient has always been his dream--something to think about when you’re eating beans out of a can and staring at the campfire. When the owner of the campground offers him a small painting job, our hero thinks it would be rude to refuse. Only a small paint job with some green paint. Where’s the harm? Besides, he could use the money to buy some more beans. One job leads to another, each stranger and more inscrutable than the one before. Before long he is hopelessly and hilariously enmeshed in the off-season mysteries of a placid northern community, grappling with dark forces beyond his power--some of which hang out at the local pub.

Like The Restraint of Beasts, All Quiet on the Orient Expressseems destined to become a classic, and establishes beyond doubt that Magnus Mills is a peerless craftsman of the uncanny.