The Excursion Train [Hardcover]

Edward Marston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2005

Set in 19th century England, a bustling crowd boards the Great Western Railway Excursion train on their way to an illegal championship fight in Maidenhead. As the rowdiness of the crowd increases, the train s guard fears "for the safety of his rolling stock". The last thing he expects to find is the brutal murder of one of his passengers, Jake Bransby. Once the shocking discovery of the body is made, Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant Inspector Leeming, are called to the scene. Faced with what initially appears to be a motiveless murder Colbeck is perplexed by the murder weapon, a noose -- until he later discovers Bransby previously worked as a public executioner. However, the more he delves into the case the more mysterious it seems to become. After a second death by noose takes place Colbeck knows he must act quickly. Can he catch the murderer before more lives are lost? Rich in historical detail The Excursion Train will hold you captivated from beginning to end.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Murder in the midst of merriment can be the most shocking sort, and so it is in the case of Jacob Bransby--brutally strangled with a length of wire while on board a train carriage crowded with lowlife Londoners, all bound for an illegal bare-knuckle prizefight in Berkshire in 1852. That the deceased's wallet was not purloined leaves Scotland Yard Inspector Robert Colbeck wondering at the motive for this heinous act--and, soon, additional crimes--in The Excursion Train, Edward Marston's second witty, railroad-tied Colbeck escapade (after The Railway Detective).

It doesn't take the foppish flatfoot long, though, to realize that "Bransby" was an alias, behind which hid a veteran public executioner, notorious both for his religious mania and his appalling incompetence with a hangman's noose. While the deceased's suffering spouse lives in denial of her husband's invidious deeds and macabre mementos, and their estranged son operates under his wife's maiden name in order to avoid being treated "as if I was a leper," Colbeck--assisted, as usual, by tenacious Sergeant Victor Leeming--does everything he can to expose the dead man's secrets, and thus flush out a killer. Could this homicide have been committed in retribution for the botched hanging in Kent, a month before, of butcher Nathan Hawkshaw, a generally upstanding individual convicted (despite his protestations of innocence) of hacking to death the alleged rapist of his 16-year-old stepdaughter, Emily? The inspector can only determine that, it seems, by first revisiting the Hawkshaw case--an endeavor that will lead to Leeming's inauspicious beating, an attempted suicide, Colbeck's employment of Madeleine Andrews (the comely conductor's daughter he rescued in The Railway Detective) as his investigative confederate, and yet another slaying on the tracks.

Brimming with whimsical dialogue, full-throttle turns, and a droll cast (especially delightful is priggish police superintendent Edward Tallis), The Excursion Train might only be faulted for the artlessness of its romantic subplot. British novelist Marston, best known for his Elizabethan theater mysteries (The Counterfeit Crank), has struck a rich, arcane vein of possibilities by rooting the Colbeck books in the world of railroads--the transformational technology of mid-19th-century England. Colbeck and Leeming have the opportunity in future installments to steam off after malefactors in any queer corner of Victorian Britain. All aboard! --J. Kingston Pierce

Review

"Marston's Victorian historical set in England features Detective Inspector

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Allison & Busby LTD (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749083921
• ISBN-13: 978-0749083922
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,518,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Follow-On Murder Mystery, January 13, 2006

By 

P. M Simon "El Simon Asombroso" (New Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Excursion Train (Hardcover)

Before there was Sherlock Holmes, there was Detective Robert Colbeck of Scotland Yard, proto-railfan and serious investigator. In 1852, he embarks on his second adventure, once again aided by his loyal sergeant and harassed by his martinent boss.

You needn't have read the first book (THE RAILWAY DETECTIVE) to enjoy this mystery. A cobbler is brutally murdered on an excursion train to a prizefight. It turns out that the 'cobbler' is also a hangman, and not a very good one. Who killed him and why? Will other murders follow? It's a good yarn and the time and place of early-mid victorian London and England are brought to life with nice, crisp descriptive prose.

This isn't a profound or profoundly complex book, but it is fun, diverting, and has some good historical fiction worked in. Mystery buffs and train spotters alike will enjoy it!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Second Book in a Great Series, April 14, 2008

By 

J. Chippindale (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Excursion Train (Inspector Robert Colbeck) (Paperback)

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 2005 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.

One thing that the railways was eminently capable of was getting a great deal of people to a destination far quicker than any other form of transport and this is what takes place when a large crowd of people bound for an illegal prize fight in the country board the Great Western Railway train. So boisterous is the crowd that the train guard fears for the safety of his carriages. However, even he does not expect the brutal murder of one of his passengers.

Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant, Sergeant Victor Leeming, who himself has more than a little trepidation of train travel, are called to the scene and initially are baffled by what appears to be a murder without motive. When another man is murdered on a train by the same method, Inspector Colbeck knows that he will have to move swiftly to apprehend the killer before further lives are lost.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All aboard for an exciting ride!, July 22, 2007

By 

Billy J. Hobbs "Bill Hobbs" (Tyler, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Excursion Train (Inspector Robert Colbeck) (Paperback)

Edward Marston has four quite successful historical fiction mysteries. In his newest of these (the Inspector Robert Colbeck Series), Marston explores yet another era in British history, the Victorian Age, and more specificially, his protagonist Colbeck is a Scotland Yard detective who not only specializes but thrives on railway cases.

In this the second of the series, "The Excursion Train," Colbeck and his assistant Sergeant Leeming are called in to investigate a bizarre murder on an excursion train
(where the passengers were specifically headed for a prize fight, illegal, of course, as it's Victorian England). The victim is found garrotted on board the train. Soon, the detectives discover the identity of the body--a former hangman for the Queen's Court, a much loathed man, who, from some accounts, deserved the killing as he'd been the executioner of a man many considered to be innocent. And before we've completed the journey, another body is found murdered in the same fashion. And it turns out, the victim is also related, in a fashion, to the original execution.

Thus, Marston is now on the right tracks, bound for glory. The first man's death, his occupation, the execution, and a nearby village all come into play as Colbeck and Leeming are all aboard for another exciting mystery ride, with all "issues" cleared up by the end. This series seems to show Marston at his writing best, as the books move at a fast pace, seem more historically researched, and capture the setting quite well.

And it's not all "Hamlet, Act V" with all those bodies piling up. Colbeck's romantic interest, Madeline Andrews, from the first episode is also featured, to help in a change of pace. Marston skillfully incorporates her into the hunt and the reader finds her a welcome addition, the love interest not being too syrupy (it's all quite proper and Victorian), melodramtic, or distracting.

"The Excursion Train" leaves on time and reaches its destination with few hitches or stopovers, and the reader can settle back and let the author do all the driving. It's a good, enjoyable read.