Rachel is a troubled soul who lost her husband and her job due to her uncontrolled drinking. Now she spends her days in a charade—travelling back and forth by rail to the city (thus the title) in the pretense of commuting to the job she no longer holds, whiling away the days in public libraries, and making frequent stops at the off-license. From the train she spies on a Victorian terrace home in her old neighborhood that backs up to the rail line and imagines a fantasy existence for the couple living there, perhaps it’s the fantasy she never was able to experience herself. The night that the woman from her fantasy musings disappears and later turns up murdered, is a night that Rachel was nearby on a bender. Only nebulous memories of that evening remain, but somehow she thinks they may hold important clues to an intricate web that involves her ex-husband, his new wife, the missing woman, and a mystery man. This is the new Gone Girl by all accounts....