The Last Train Out of Hell

by

Julie Price Carpenter

An atmospheric setting, engaging characters, fun dialogue, and a puzzling mystery combine to create an entertaining and memorable story.

When a distracted Liz Martin stepped off a curb into the path of a bus, she never expected to find herself on a one-way train trip to Hell, but there she was. And Hell wasn’t at all what she had been led to envision; it was more of an overcrowded, soot-showered, demon-infested version of “Up Top,” all run by the overwhelmed, under-budgeted Manager of Hell named Brian. 

Readers are thrust immediately into the confusion and chaos of the setting as the latest train disgorges Hell’s newest arrivals to the afterlife at Perdition City Station. The freshly disembodied are met with the nightmare of Hell’s woefully inadequate infrastructure and rigid, red-tape-ridden governmental bureaucracy comprised of endless queues and stacks of incomprehensible forms, where the smallest mistake sends the bearer to the back of the line. I love the full spectrum of creatures found there (ranked demons, devils, succubi, etc.) and their demonic names, as well as the inclusion of biblically well-known figures such as Beelzebub and Lilith, and the well-known adjacent entities like “Sam” Azrael. The cute yet hellish business and brand names were also fun (i.e., Dante’s Café, Taco Torchiere, and Ghoulies breakfast cereal). 

A rule-follower by nature, Liz passively accepts her adjudication to Hell but lies awake nights searching her memories of her past for just cause and still coming up clueless. She shares her eternal life in damnation with a personally assigned demon, a catlike creature named Dennis, who upchucks or otherwise evacuates everything he ingests onto her shoes, bed, or underwear drawer. Joining her in perdition (and Perdition City) are two other recent arrivals and neighbors in her apartment building, Ellie and Theo, along with their own tiny tormentors, the little dragon, Greg, who sleeps a good 20 hours per day, and Theo’s troublesome companion, Alberta, a manic marmoset. They, too, are genuinely puzzled that their former lives merited their current situation, and together they question the more Purgatory-like nature of their existence in Perdition City. Their confusion is accompanied by the mystery of the boarded-up ticket counters at Perdition City Station, and the appearance that it wasn’t always the terminus of this Stygian railway. 

On her arrival in Hell, an accidental meeting with the Manager of Hell and a sympathetic comment garners Liz, a former librarian in life, the least coveted position of Brian’s administrative assistant. However, their shared struggles to control the chaos lead to a slow-burn attraction between the two, which was a delight to watch and raised the stakes in Liz’s and her friend’s covert investigation into the history of Hell, the railway, and Satan’s contractual responsibilities. With the implied additional train routes from the station, maybe Perdition City isn’t the final destination for everyone. 

With its vivid, atmospheric setting, well-drawn, engaging, and sympathetic characters, sparkling dialogue, and hopeful ramifications of the mystery of the train, I recommend THE LAST TRAIN OUT OF HELL to readers of humorous fiction and mystery. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advance Review Copy from Reedsy Discovery.