Azoth Express is a weird mystery novel written by Elia P. Ansaloni.
Academician Volfram Volkov is invited to an overnight ride on the Azoth Express, a luxury train about which it seems impossible to gather any kind of information. Once on board, he and the other passengers are greeted by Mr. Swapan, the conductor, who tells them they have been selected to play an exclusive mystery game. Should they win, they would receive a prize that goes beyond their imagination.
There's just one little problem: the riddle they have to solve is where the train is headed, an information that from the start proves to be harder to obtain than expected. Oh, and Volkov is a lycanthrope, although the other guests don't seem to mind that much.
The story has been described as a mixture of a classic detective story and weird fiction, with the characters searching for coherent clues among the piling-up absurdities. First published in 2021, the book is part of the burgeoning Italian New Weird current.
This book contains examples of:
- Closed Circle: Once the train leaves, there is no way to stop it until they reach the destination, which means that those who boarded it are sealed off from the rest of the world. And it's better not to break any window.
- Color Motif: In a Clue fashion, each character wears something of a particular color. These associations, however, are less random.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The Ravenscroft family is terribly racist, with Lady Hyacinth suspecting of Mr. and Mrs. Yong because they are Korean and Randolph believing Mercedes to be a witch for her (supposed) ancestry. They also expect Volkov to be a Freemason due to him coming from Soviet Union. Everyone else on the train just scoffs at their absurdities although they indirectly help Volkov solve the mystery.
- Eldritch Location: The titular train is made of an unspecified stony black material, traversed by a lattice of filaments providing illumination. It travels through an unknown land, which is constantly covered by a thick white devouring fog, and any attempt at localization on board is bound to fail.
- Fantastic Noir: The story combines the classic mystery on a train with fantastic elements, starting with the detective himself.
- Homage: To both Mystery Fiction (the Express part) and Lovecraftian Bizarro Fiction (the Azoth part).
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter is titled after a word from a different language which expresses a concept that is difficult to translate.
- Like Reality, Unless Noted: This trope is often used to make the situation progressively more surreal. The first pages would seem straight out of a classic detective novel, until the narration casually points out that Volkov is a wolfman. As the guests are investigating, they suddenly realize in shock that they are all speaking in the same language, perfectly understanding each other despite coming from different parts of the world and each believing to be speaking in their native language.
- Nasty Party: At some point, the guests suspect that Swapan has gathered them on the train to have them murdered one by one. This turns out to be wrong.
- Ontological Mystery: What the guests are trying to solve. Where are they going?
- Ship Tease: Some moments play with the chance of an attraction budding between Volkov and Mercedes, but they end up becoming friends instead.
- Thriller on the Express: It starts relatively low-risk, with the passengers taking part to a mystery game, but things become darker once they realize that they don't know where they're going and there's a murderer on the train.
- Uncanny Valley
- Swapan tends to creep out the guests despite (or because of) his impeccable manners: he's always smiling and seems able to move without making any noise, always being there when someone requires his presence.
- Guyle has an unnaturally grayish complexion, an unchanging look on his face and an imposing stature that makes him loom over the other travelers. That's because he's a gargoyle brought to life.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: None among the staff or the passengers is fazed by Volkov's lycanthropy. As it turns out, they are accustomed to far stranger things.
