The Railway Detective

I've been reading the Railway Detective series by Edward Marston.  I found three of the books at a used bookstore in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  They looked pretty interesting and were inexpensive, so I thought I would give them a try.  I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie and that type of British mysteries, and I'm always looking for new authors with similar styles.  I was surprised to see that Edward Marston was a contemporary author.  Usually these types of series are written by authors who lived around the same time as Agatha Christie, so they have since passed away.  Edward Marston is the pseudonym of Keith Miles, a Welsh author who has written books, plays, radio, etc.  Under the Edward Marston name, he writes four different series of novels, set in different time periods.

I've tried all of his series, and my favorite remains the Railway Detective series.  The books are set in the 1850s.  The main protagonist is Inspector Robert Colbeck from the Detective Department of the Metropolitan Police, now more famously known as Scotland Yard.  At the time, Scotland Yard was still in its infancy.  The mysteries are usually centered around the railways, which became really popular during Victorian England.  I found the mysteries interesting, and the characters pretty well-rounded.  Marston has a gift for describing the details so well that you really feel like you're in Victorian England.  In addition, due to my son's current obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine, I am well-versed in the vocabulary of the railways, so I actually understand a lot of the references Marston puts in his books.