The third in Andrew Martin's Edwardian era 'Jim Stringer' novels is the finest so far. Like the earlier books, The Necropolis Railway and The Blackpool Highflyer, this is less an out-and-out thriller than a study of a period and place: the evocation of the time and the landscapes that the naive hero passes through (the grim back streets of York, the countryside beyond the city, the boat train to Paris) is extraordinarliy vivid and intense. Jim Stringer is an almost Palin-esque Northern train obsessive, albeit one who appears to be growing up a bit in this book, even if his wife remains the sharper of the two: this relationship allows for some delicious social comedy, especially in the episode when Jim's father visits the couple and is exposed to his daughter-in-law's progressive attitudes. Furthermore, Andrew Martin has a truly Dickensian eye for the 'killer detail' - the apparently casual, off-centre observation that illuminates a lost world in a tiny phrase. These books are much more than genre fiction and deserve a far wider public.
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