The Lost Luggage Porter

by Andrew Martin. Faber, 2006, ISBN 0571219039.
Cover design by Two Associates. Cover artwork: Hulton Archive/Getty; John Angerson/Alamy; Science and Society Picture Library; National Railway Museum; Mary Evans Picture Library.

Crime fiction fans looking for something a bit different might enjoy Andrew Martin’s Jim Stringer series. Set in the North of England a hundred years ago, The Lost Luggage Porter , the third in the series, following The Necropolis Railway and Blackpool Highflier, finds the reluctant railway detective, Jim Stringer, out of his depth on his first day operating out of York Railway Station. Two brothers have been shot to death – is there a connection with a pickpocket gang which frequents the station platforms? Andrew Martin writes knowledgeably about the period, and the books are beautifully atmospheric, capturing the rain-soaked, smoky, Yorkshire winter.

Stringer, who’d rather drive trains than solve murders, finds himself dangerously close to an intelligent and deeply disturbed criminal pair. Can he avert the peril he has placed his wife in?

Occasional strong language may deter some readers, but the Yorkshire dialect is not overdone.

- John.