Andrew Martin (1)

This is the second in the series and Jim Stringer has moved from London to Halifax to work as a fire man for the 'Yorkshire and Lancashire Steam Company'. On an excursion to Blackpool the train that Jim is working on is suddenly halted in its tracks by a gritstone placed on the tracks ahead of it and a young woman loses her life. Jim sets out to discover who tried to wreck the train.

Once again I should point out that I live in the North, work on the trains there, often even to Blackpool, have a friend who lives in Sowerby Bridge so know the area quite well and enjoy reading about social history. The author paints a vivid picture of Halifax in 1905, the great weaving mills with their Wakes Weeks holidays to a Blackpool in its heyday, the music halls and pubs of the era and of course, the Edwardian steam railway. I found this all fascinating and compelling. In particular I found the description of the first trip on the steam-engine thrilling: could imagine the landmarks I know flashing by, the heat and sweat of stoking the firebox, the almost dance-like nature of keeping your balance on the footplate whilst the engine was barrelling along at full steam- I almost felt I was there with them.

Unfortunately the whodunit element of this book just didn't work for me. It just wasn't particularly gripping. Jim seems to spend the whole book dreaming up tenuous scenarios to fit in each person. The authorities barely seemed to care – I didn’t either.

Jim is a likeable character, an intelligent, working-class railwayman but I saw little in the way of character development from the first in the series. I have several more of these in my possession so I don't intend to give up on them totally but it may be a while before I get to the next in line.… (mehr)