火车大劫案 (1975)

《火车大劫案》（英语：The Great Train Robbery）是一部于1975年出版的小说，由迈克尔·克莱顿创作，故事讲述真实发生于1855年的黄金大抢案。在美国，本书是1975年的畅销书，并获得《纽约时报》和《洛杉矶时报》的好评。本书亦有三种有声书版本问世。

The Great Train Robbery is a best-selling 1975 historical novel written by Michael Crichton, his third novel under his own name and his thirteenth novel overall. Originally published in the US by Alfred A. Knopf (then a division of Random House), it was later published by Avon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The novel tells the story of the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, a massive gold heist that takes place on a train travelling through Victorian-era England on 22 May 1855. Most of the book takes place in London. A 1978 film adaptation was written and directed by Crichton.

Plot

In 1854, master thief Edward Pierce plans to steal a shipment of gold worth more than £12,000 being transported monthly from London to the Crimean War front. During transportation from London to Folkestone via train, the bank locks the gold in two custom-built safes, each with two locks, thus requiring a total of four keys to open. He recruits Robert Agar, a specialist in copying keys, as an accomplice.

Pierce's first target is the key held by bank president Edgar Trent. Through painstaking surveillance, conversations with bank employees, a deliberately bungled pickpocketing attempt and a likewise deliberate courtship of Trent's daughter Elizabeth, Pierce learns that Trent's key is kept at his mansion. With the assistance of his longtime mistress, an actress known only as "Miss Miriam", and his loyal associate, a buck cabby named Barlow, Pierce and Agar successfully break into Trent's home and wine cellar (where Pierce has learned the key is hidden) by night and make a wax impression of the key.

Bank manager Henry Fowler contracts syphilis and asks his friend Pierce to aid him in seeking a remedy: sleeping with a virgin. After supposedly making the necessary arrangements through a madam (actually "Miss Miriam"), who charges Fowler the exorbitant price of one hundred fifty pounds, Agar makes an impression of Fowler's key, which he always carries with him around his neck but takes off and leaves with his clothes during the assignation.

The other two keys are kept in a railway shipping department office at London Bridge Station. Pierce helps burglar "Clean Willy" Williams escape from Newgate Prison, and with his help the criminals succeed in making wax copies of the two keys at the railway station, completing the job with only seconds to spare before detection. Now possessing copies of all four keys, Pierce bribes Burgess, the poorly-paid train guard who rides in the baggage van containing the safes, to "look away". Agar is then able to perform a dry run of the theft on 17 February 1855, making sure that the copied keys work perfectly, and the actual robbery is scheduled for March. However, unforeseen events in both March and April force the thieves to postpone the robbery until May.

In mid-May, Pierce's plans are further disrupted when "Clean Willy" suddenly turns "nose" (police informant). Pierce's cabby Barlow murders Willy before he can reveal the most crucial information, although Willy has told enough to cause Edward Harranby, a very senior Scotland Yard official, to deduce that a major robbery is planned. Through careful manipulation of another "nose", Pierce is able to convince the police that his intent is to steal the transatlantic cable company payroll in Greenwich, diverting their attention and leaving the thieves free and clear to strike, with the actual robbery scheduled for May 22nd.