One thing inexorably leads to another, and he finds himself drawn into a succession of disparate tasks, each more complex and time-consuming, and from which there appears to be no escape.

[4] Carey Harrison in the San Francisco Chronicle commented: "It's not out of idle amusement that the sweetly fiendish author has named his book All Quiet on the Orient Express.

This marriage of famous titles hides from view (yet points to) its dark, telling twin: Murder on the Western Front.

"[5] Nanja Labi in Time wrote: "In this creepy, deadpan novel by a nominee for Britain's Booker Prize, nothing much happens—except that one man slowly, painlessly, surrenders his life.

Yet one must acknowledge that the range of All Quiet on the Orient Express is larger; Mills develops the absurdity of this situation with more subtlety and precision.