Here’s a not-so-little thing: I love trains and railroad lore. My wife despises trains, thinking them antiquated monuments to the age of industrialism. And yet we both love Andrew Martin’s books. It’s because there is something that is just so right about his tales of Detective Jim Stringer, North Eastern Railway Company.
In MURDER AT DEVIATION JUNCTION, the fourth book in the series, Stringer has his heart set on a promotion to Detective Sergeant. But it’s a tough row to hoe because his immediate superior has it in for Stringer, and makes his life difficult. Things get much worse when a murdered body is discovered in a disused cabin along the line.
Stringer’s investigation leads him to the Middlesbrough Traveling Club, a group of important men who purchased their own passenger car in order to commute to work. The dead man had taken a picture of the club members. Nothing odd about that. But then the club members have also started to disappear, most by foul play.
Set in a Yorkshire winter of 1909, Martin’s details about everything — railroads, rail travel, photography and the style of spoken language, both formal and casual — all seem spot-on. Sometimes, his powers of description aren’t quite up to snuff, but his plots and action scenes are exciting, and the characters either likable (such as Stringer) or enigmatically intriguing (such as the Chief).
Another excellent, and realistic, touch is that Stringer isn’t a superman; he’s an average detective doing his job and hoping to get promoted but not sure he can be. There are money troubles in the household, and he has to deal with all of that, along with his own frustrated wish to actually be a fireman on the railroad, instead of just investigating crimes along the line.
All of this combines into a marvelous Edwardian mystery series, perfect for those of us who love stories of this time, who may have a love of the iron rails, and who like solidly written detective fiction. —Mark Rose
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE LOST LUGGAGE PORTER by Andrew Martin
Related posts:
- The Lost Luggage Porter
- Murder in the Rough
- Murder at the Foul Line
- Diagnosis Murder: The Past Tense
- Christmas Is Murder
