Showing results by author "Edward Marston" in All Categories

London, 1851. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest in mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating. In an audacious attack, the London to Birmingham mail train is robbed and derailed, causing many casualties. Planned with military precision, this crime proves a challenge to Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck who fights to untangle a web of murder, blackmail and destruction.

April, 1867. A train departs King's Cross station bound for Lincoln. Among the passengers is a man attired in the garb of one in high ecclesiastical office.

Shrewsbury, 1866. Julian Lockyer is an imposing gentleman in his late fifties. Having reserved a room for the night at the Station Hotel, he asks to be called early in the morning because he has a train to catch. Repeated attempts are made to wake him but there is no response. After forcing the door, the horrified hotel staff discover the bloodied corpse but with the knife still in his hand ... could he have killed himself in such a brutal manner?

When the engines finally met, there was a deafening clash and the Brighton Express twisted and buckled, tipping its carriages on to the other line. It was a scene of utter devastation. October 1854. As crowds of passengers rush to make the departure of the London to Brighton Express, a man watches from the shadows nearby, grimly satisfied as the train pulls out of the station. Chaos, fatalities and unbelievable destruction are the scene soon after when the train derails on the last leg of its journey.

December 1860. Headed for the morning shift at the Swindon Locomotive Works is an army of men pouring out of terraced houses built by the GWR, a miniature town and planned community that aims to provide for its employees from cradle to grave. Unfortunately, boilersmith Frank Rodman is headed for the grave sooner than he'd expected, or he will be once his missing head is found. Colbeck, the Railway Detective, finds his investigation into Rodman's murder mired in contradictions.

December 1864. As a cold winter wind scours the Worcestershire countryside, an excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills, only to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the impact is minimised, but the passengers are alarmed. The first person to alight is Cyril Hubbleday, the man in charge of the excursion. He walks to the front of the locomotive—and, as he is talking to the driver, fireman and guard, he is shot dead by a sniper.

East Anglia, 1861. Alone in a first-class carriage, the Swarbricks are robbed at gunpoint. But when the universally admired Swarbrick fights back, the train robber takes more than money and jewellery, killing the man working to unify East Anglia's tangle of railway networks. Inspector Colbeck is brought in from London, but as Swarbrick's glowing reputation begins to crumble, the line of investigation isn't clear.

An exquisite silver coffee-pot in the shape of a locomotive is on its way to Cardiff in the care of silversmith, Hugh Kellow. When the coffee-pot is stolen and a murder is committed, Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are called in to investigate.

On the shocking discovery of a passenger's body on the Great Western Railway excursion train, Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant, Sergeant Victor Leeming, are dispatched to the scene. Faced with what initially appears to be a motiveless murder, Colbeck is intrigued by the murder weapon - a noose. When it emerges that the victim had worked as a public executioner, Colbeck realises that this must be intrinsically linked to the killer's choice of weapon.

Following a string of successful performances along the west coast, the Moscardi Circus is travelling by train to Hexham on the Newcastle to Carlisle Railway for their next show. Yet a collision on the track causes pandemonium. When the headless body of a woman is discovered in nearby woodland, Inspector Colbeck is desperate to lend assistance, however a reluctant Superintendent Tallis forbids him from doing so.

1860, Wimborne, Dorset. Rebecca Tullidge, miserably married to her callous husband, is having an affair with a railway officer, John Bedloe. Much to her distress, she trips over her lover's dead body on the railway tracks. Determined to win votes for the upcoming election of mayor, Mr Feltham calls for Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Lemming to solve the hideous crime, which takes longer than anticipated.

Egypt, 1908. George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield, used to the grand opulence of the Cunard cruise line, are at first disappointed with the Marmora, a small, unimpressive ship owned by the P&O shipping line. Employed by P&O to be the ship’s detectives, Dillman and Masefield expect to encounter the usual assortment of petty thieves and confidence tricksters. But this cruise is certain to be unique as the Duke and Duchess of Fife and their children are aboard and the detectives will provide security for the royals. And when a dead body turns up, the voyage proves to be one to remember.

Derby Day at Epsom Downs and a multitude of people crowd to watch the races: dukes and dustmen, bishops and beggars, privileged ladies and prostitutes. The gamut of Victorian society, though, is also a hotbed for crime and crooks of all kinds. With the country a-flutter in the run-up to this national occasion, events reach fever pitch when a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train at Crewe; the first in a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud and race-fixing.

New York, 1908. While waiting to embark on the Caronia, the Cunard Line’s famous ocean liner, private detectives George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield are startled to witness the boarding of a man and woman in shackles. They discover that these prisoners are being brought back to England by Scotland Yard to face trial for murder. Over the course of the crossing, while managing purse-snatchers, burglars and drug traffickers, Dillman and Masefield come to believe that the captured couple may not be the vicious criminals some might think.

The Railway Detective faces his most dangerous adversary yet. It is 1852, and Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant Sergeant Victor Leeming are faced with their most complex and difficult case to date. As a train speeds over the Sankey Viaduct, a man is hurled from a carriage and plummets into the canal below. It later transpires that he has been stabbed to death. With no papers by which to identify the man, the detectives' investigation is hampered from the start. Suspecting that the victim may have come from continental Europe, Colbeck and Leeming take the case to France where a new railway is being built by a British contractor.

A vicious rivalry threatens to cause chaos for Lord Westfield’s Men when the onstage duels between Owen Elias and Sebastian Carrick become ever more realistic. However, it is an axe that splits open Sebastian's head one night in a Clerkenwell alley. Company book holder Nicholas Bracewell, accustomed to damage control, begins to investigate the victim's death and learns that in life, he was prone to make enemies from his weakness for women and his unwillingness to settle his debts. A web of deception has in fact been spun that stretches all the way to the Virgin Queen.

Guy Fawkes Night, 1857. Joel Heygate is the popular stationmaster at Exeter St David's railway station - an impressive figure of a man replete with frock coat and top hat, bushy eyebrows and walrus moustache. But when the charred remains of a body are discovered in the embers of the town's annual Bonfire Night celebration, everyone is horrified when it becomes clear that they belong to Mr Heygate.

February 1918. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy are pulled from their beds to attend a sinister siege involving three burglars where one policeman has already been shot dead. Attempts at talking the men in the house into surrender are met with stony silence so the police proceed to batter down the door and Keedy bravely leads the way. A gunshot is heard. Keedy is hit. As Keedy is rushed to hospital, Marmion is on the trail of the men who fled the scene and startling revelations emerge.

December 1669. During one of the coldest winters in living memory, the Thames freezes over, and a frost fair is held on the thick ice. Architect Christopher Redmayne and puritanical constable Jonathan Bale are both visiting the fair when one of Bale's sons gets into trouble on the ice. They rescue the boy but in the process make a grim discovery - a frozen corpse....