The Railway Viaduct

Edward Marston is just one of the pseudonyms of author Keith Miles. He has been a university lecturer, radio, television, and theatre dramatist, and in addition to writing has worked as an actor, director, and dramatist. He has written a large number of books with historical themes, perhaps the most well known being his Domesday series. These revolve around the census of 1086 and a series of mysteries featuring the Elizabethan theatre as their background. Once you have become familiar with an author's work, his character's and style of writing it is sometimes difficult to become attuned to a new character and storyline, but in this case the author seems to have come up with yet another winner, although his Domesday books will always be my own particular favourites.. This is a new venture for the author published in 2006 and following on from The Railway Detective and featuring a new character in the redoubtable Inspector Robert Colbeck. The book is set in a period when the railways were still in their infancy and not everybody liked traveling on them, and in some cases still preferred the horse., treating the railways with a great deal of suspicion. In this the third book, Inspector Colbeck is faced with his most difficult case yet. A body is recovered from the canal and when Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are called to the case it has already been established that the body had been thrown into the canal from a moving train. The first problem that faces the two detectives is that there is no identification on the body. They are at a loss until a young woman comes forward to explain that the man is called Gaston Chabal, an engineer working on a railway project in France. Inspector Colbeck and his sergeant are amazed when they get little or no co-operation from the French government and of course Colbeck's own Superintendent is not averse to putting a spanner in the works at every opportunity if he thinks that it will bring his blue eyed boy Inspector down a peg or two . . .

Like all the novels by this author, this is excellently written and easy to read. Whatever period Marston writes about, you can breathe the air his characters breathe and this latest in the series about Inspector Colbeck is no exception; the characterisation is superb and the atmosphere is alive. Although these are not 'whodunits' like his other three series, they are no less compelling to read and keep you intrigued and excited to the very end.