Read: December 1, 2012
Summary: The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars was first published in 1927 and was one of the first massive bestsellers. It tells the story of two characters, Lady Diana Wyndham (a British aristocrat) and Gérard Séliman (a French Prince) who begin their thrilling journey across Europe.
Prince Séliman is saddened and discouraged by the breakdown of his marriage that he escapes New York to live in London only to become a personal assistant to Lady Diana. Lady Diana leads a scheme to save herself from financial ruin and enlists Prince Séliman to help her. The centre of the scheme is to rescue a Russian oil field that belongs to the Wyndham family. The oil filed fell siege to Russian revolutionaries who don’t like capitalists.
The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars
My thoughts: It was a great novel to read and was a page turner. The story was moving along so nicely that I didn’t want to put it down. I kept reading on to see what would happened. It wasn’t predicatble at all and there was enough twists and turn to develop the story. The characters were great. This book was such a great find. I ended up stumbling across a blog post about this book, among others, who were written by once popular authors. In trying to find out information about the author and the book online, it was fascinating to read that The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars set the standard for intellectual thrillers of political and social intrigue. It was such a fun read and was one of the few books I’ve read where I was consistently going to a dictionary.
