Follow the adventures of Jim Stringer, a railway worker and amateur sleuth navigating the mysteries of early 1900s England. This series immerses you in an era of steam engines and intriguing puzzles, where each case tests his sharp wit and courage. Dive into compelling narratives filled with twists and turns, uncovering hidden truths against the backdrop of a rapidly industrializing world.
Andrew Martin has written an historical thriller set around the true story of the Brookwood Necropolis Railway, which carried the dead from Waterloo Station. Previous novels by the author include 'Bilton' and 'The Bobby Dazzlers'.
'Genuinely gripping ... A brilliant evocation of Edwardian working-class life - the sort of thing DH Lawrence might have written had he been less verbose or been blessed with a sense of humour.' Peter Parker, Evening StandardThe second Jim Stringer adventure, The Blackpool Highflyer is a suberbly atmospheric thriller of sabotage, suspicion and steam. 'Unique and important ... There is no one else who is writing like Andrew Martin today.' Ian Marchant, Guardian'Evokes Edwardian Yorkshire and Lancashire, their great industrial prosperity and singular ways of living, quite brilliantly in a historical whodunnit which for its fresh and stealthy approach to past times deserves the adjective Bainbridgean.' Ian Jack, Guardian (Books of the Year)'A steamy whodunnit ... This may well be the best fiction about the railways since Dickens.' Michael Williams, Independent on Sunday
York, Winter, 1906 - two brothers have been shot to death. Meanwhile, Jim Stringer meets the Lost Luggage Porter, humblest among the employees of the North Eastern Railway company. But then in a tiny, one-room pub with a badly smoking fire he enters the orbit of a dangerous, disturbed villain who is playing for much higher stakes .
Jim's faltering career in the railway police hangs on whether he can solve the murder - but before long the pursuer becomes the pursued, and Jim finds himself fighting not just for his job, but for his very life as well.
It's the sweltering summer of 1911, and one Friday evening a young aristocrat arrives into the custody of detective Jim Stringer, a man recently found guilty of murdering his father in the sleepy village of Adenwold.
One night, in a private boarding house in Scarborough, a railwayman vanishes, leaving his belongings behind... It is the eve of the Great War, and Jim Stringer, railway detective, is uneasy about his next assignment. And when Jim encounters the seductive and beautiful Amanda Rickerby a whole new personal danger enters Jim's life...
On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun.
He arrives to find a city on the point of insurrection, his cover apparently blown - and his only contact lying dead with flies in his eyes.
Jim Stringer, steam detective, travels from Calcutta to the mountain resort of Darjeeling, as he tries to solve a deadly mystery on the East Indian Railways.