The Railway Detective (Paperback)

It is the dawn of the age of the locomotive and it does not come peaceably. There are enough "foes" of this "new fangled contraption" and many will go to all ends to try to put a stop to it and the new Age that is surely dawning on the British Empire.

Early on we know who the culprits are, as Marston doesn't play games with the reader. Instead, he permits Colbeck and his Sergeant Leeming to methodically put the pieces of the puzzle together and, despite the usual suspects and the usual
obstacles, arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

A train is highjacked in Chapter One and subsequently and deliberately de-railed. It is carrying gold bullion from the Royal Mint and the day's mail. The robbery is carried out with true military precision (a clue Colbeck quickly picks up).
It is such a perfect and professional job that Scotland Yard knows that there have to be "insiders" involved. A few murders later (Colbeck cleverly links them to the robbery), the case is put to rest.

Marston doesn't do histrionics and not a lot of melodrama. Instead, he tells a story that not only serves to keep out interest in solving the crime but provides much readable background of the time and place. There's the usual violence in a police procedural murder mystery and Marston also throws in a limited romantic turn, too!

Marston's historical series (The Nicholas Bracewell Elizabethan mysteries, the Redmayne series, and the Domesday Books series) stand on their own merit. The author jumps a few centuries and seems to fit right in. That said, readers will hope for more in this interesting era.

The Railway Detective goes back to England in 1851, just a few years after Scotland Yard was founded. In this case, a military-like train robbery has succeeded in capturing a fortune in gold coins. This happened despite tight security, lots of guards, a stout safe and a secret combination. Hmmm. How could it have been done? Curiously, there's also an attempt to sabotage the rail line to unnecessarily derailing a locomotive. What's that all about?

In the course of the case, you meet fearless, dedicated Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his preferred partner, Sergeant Leeming who pick through the details to figure out how this inside job was pulled and by whom. Along the way, Colbeck finds himself becoming interested in Madeleine Andrews, daughter of the locomotive engineer who was seriously injured in the robbery. That interest proves to be a problem for both of them.

The plot is obviously inspired in part by an actual train robbery that occurred in England in 1855 which is described in fascinating detail in The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton, a book that I much preferred to this one. If you only want to read about one Victorian train robbery, I suggest that you choose that one instead.

The background of the story is the conflict between landowners and the railways as they spread out over England like so many spider webs in the 1840s and 1850s. There's also some lively conflict between the traditional police who draw on their military backgrounds and the new methods of plain clothes detectives. There's also a nice tie-in to the Great Exposition of 1851 and the famous Crystal Palace.

The story makes many references to 1851 but doesn't seem authentic in many ways. For example, the dialogue seems contemporary. But that's okay. The plot is fun.

The characters are so restrained though by the plot and having a stiff upper lip that you don't get much of a sense of them. It will take many books in this series before the characters will probably surpass comic book cutouts.