The Excursion Train by
A.E. Marston
hbk out February 05
Published by Allison Busby
at £18.99
It's Victorian Britain, the transport revolution, the age of steam - and there's a detective to
go with it. A barrister turned policeman, Inspector Robert Colbeck solved his first railway
case in The Railway Detective, and now looks set fair to detect his way through a series.
The excursion train of the title is conveying Londoners to a less-than-legal boxing match in
Berkshire, but when the rowdy throng disembarks in search of the entertainment a body is
discovered in one of the carriages. The corpse is that of Jacob Guttridge, hangman; an
inept and over-religious hangman with many enemies - but which one killed him, and
why? In order to solve this case (and a second, connected murder) Colbeck, assisted by
the mandatory less intelligent and slightly wimpy Sergeant and hindered by his impatient
Superintendent (yes, in Victorian times too), must investigate an earlier crime for which a
man has already been hanged.
Secrets abound - of lives, passions, interests, relationships. Colbeck and his Sergeant are
hindered at every turn, but this intelligent and sympathetic detective, sometimes evincing
almost Holmesian powers of deduction, is well up to all the obstacles put in his path.
Indeed some of the mysteries are not too hard to solve, but that has never detracted from
a good novel. There's a lot of period detail, and both the squalor of working class life and
the excitement of the new technological age are well depicted. It's not hard to guess how
the series will progress; Colbeck is a sound and likeable character and his friends and
colleagues complement him well.
The Excursion Train by
A.E. Marston
