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Allison and Busby. This edition published June 2008
Reviewed by Sunnie Gill
It is Autumn 1856 and trains are making the population more mobile.
Brighton has become one of the main destinations for recreation. The
increase in rail traffic has coincided with a rise in derailments and the
death. When the Brighton Express is derailed, killing the driver and
eleven passengers and injuring many more, the railway company conducts a
cursory investigation.
Their assumption is that the train driver was going too fast, causing the
train to go off the tracks. Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck doesn’t
agree with their findings. He knows the driver was a very careful man who
was proud of his job and his safety record. Colbeck cannot believe the
driver would have made such a basic error.
Colbeck and his sergeant find evidence missed by the Railway
investigators, which sends them on a path to uncover the true culprit and
the motive.
MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON EXPRESS is the fifth in the Railway Detective
series and it’s easy to see why the series is popular. Colbeck is a
progressive and broadminded man, a rarity in Victorian times. It is easy
to visualise the Victorian world that the author Edward Marston has chosen
for his characters. Marston paints little vignettes of life in England in
the mid-nineteenth century through his characters.
MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON EXPRESS is not going to set the world on fire, but
it does offer an engrossing mystery with diverse characters to make for a
light, entertaining read.
Oct 2008 review originally posted on Murder and Mayhem
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