Review of THE LAST TRAIN TO KEY WEST by Chanel Cleeton

 3 Stars

This historical novel, set in the Florida Keys around the 1935 Labour Day Weekend, is light on history and heavy on romance and, to quote lyrics from a former student, “That don’t impress me much.”

The narrative alternates among the perspectives of three women.  Helen Berner is poor and pregnant and married to an abusive alcoholic.  Working as a waitress at a diner, she meets Mirta Perez Cordero, a Cuban woman travelling with her husband Anthony to a beach house for their honeymoon.  Helen also meets Elizabeth Preston who has fled New York to avoid marrying a gangster and is looking for a World War I veteran who last wrote to her from Key West.  As a hurricane makes landfall, the three women cross paths more than once. 

The historical elements are the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, the plan to connect the Keys via railroad using WWI veterans for labour, the deplorable treatment of those vets, the Cuban Revolution of 1933, and the impact of the Great Depression.  The discussion of these elements is rather superficial, though I was inspired to do some further research so that’s certainly a positive. 

I think we are supposed to think of the women as strong characters, but I was not convinced.  Each of them is a damsel in distress needing to be rescued by a handsome, rugged hero.  All are beholden to or threatened by “bad” men and redeemed or rescued by “good” men who swoop in immediately and take them into their arms.  Helen is married to Tom who is abusive; Elizabeth is engaged to a gangster because of her father’s choices; and Mirta is in a marriage arranged to help her family in Cuba.  Helen meets John, Elizabeth meets Sam, and Mirta gets to know Anthony.  The women seem to need a man to complete their lives, and fortunately all are able to immediately charm the men they meet.  I have difficulty with the love-at-first-sight trope, and it’s used twice here. 

The reader must be willing to suspend disbelief too often.  The three plotlines connect in very convenient and improbable ways.  Then the bad guys are disposed of in contrived ways which I would classify as examples of deus ex machina.  Everyone’s problems are nicely resolved so there’s a feel-good ending. 

There is suspense because of the danger of the deadly storm threatening the Keys, but it’s not difficult to predict that, though people will die, none of the important characters will. 

The short chapters move the narrative at a good pace so this is a quick read – perfect for a summer holiday.  It entertains and doesn’t demand much of the reader.  It is just not the type of book I prefer.