Stamboul Train (BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation)

Dramatised by Jeremy Front

Europe in the 1930s. A dangerous place to be. As the Orient Express rattles its way towards Constantinople, a motley group of people find themselves threatened by intrigue, skulduggery and murderous politics

Directed by Marc Beeby

Greene originally filed Stamboul Train under his 'entertainments' and admitted, in 1974, that he wrote it to make a bit of money. "In Stamboul Train for the first and last time in my life I deliberately set out to write a book to please, one which with luck might be made into a film. The devil looks after his own and I succeeded in both aims"

Set during the 1930's, Stamboul Train takes place upon the iconic Orient Express as it weaves its way through a snowy Europe. It focuses upon a group of travellers who each have a story or secret of their own and whose lives intertwine in a tense thriller. It is a heady cocktail of wit, adventure, mystery, and sexual intrigue. It's brilliantly exciting - people in cars race trains, there are shoot-outs, tense border crossings, interrogations, scamming, seducing, faking, performing, lying, and all of this happening to the backdrop of a journey through Europe.