The Iron Horse (Inspector Robert Colbeck) (Railway Detective 4) [Hardcover]

Edward Marston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2007 | Series: Railway Detective 4

Derby Day at Epsom Downs. A multitude of people crowd to watch the races: dukes and dustmen, bishops and beggars, privileged ladies and prostitutes - the gamut of Victorian society and a hotbed for crime and crooks of all kinds. With the nation a-flutter in the run up to this national event, a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train at Crewe; the first in a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud and race-fixing. Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant are assigned to the case and are soon snarled up in a web of skullduggery stretching across the country. They are forced to ask themselves, just how much is someone prepared to hazard to win?

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A grand romp very much in the tradition of Holmes and Watson... Packed with characters Dickens would have been proud of. Wonderful, well written'TIME OUT

About the Author

Edward Marston was born and brought up in South Wales. A full-time writer for over thirty years, he has worked in radio, film, television and the theatre. Prolific and highly successful, he is equally at home writing children's books or literary criticism, plays or biographies and the settings for his crime novels range from the world of professional golf to the compilation of the Domesday Survey. He is also a former Chairman of the Crime Writers Association.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Allison & Busby (September 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749080809
• ISBN-13: 978-0749080808
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,588,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good mystery, but space them out, July 8, 2010

By 

Charlene Vickers (Winnipeg, Manitoba) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Iron Horse: A Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck Mystery (Paperback)

"The Iron Horse" is a good mystery and as a stand-alone is a decent read.

After having read six of Marston's books in four different series, though, I've come to the conclusion that he sticks to a pretty strict formula which can be disconcerting if you read too many of his books at one go. His protagonist is usually a young unmarried professional man who holds realistic moral beliefs for the time. The girlfriend is always young, gorgeous, independent, and almost but not quite as intelligent as the protagonist. His sidekick is often very straitlaced and usually of a lower class. Every series also has at least one secondary character who seems to exist mainly as a foil to the protagonist - not as an enemy per se but as a trial against which the protagonist can display his manliness. (The vilely hypocritical Superintendent Tallis, who inveighs against the evils of horseracing in this story as he enjoys a cigar that could only have been produced by slave labour, is perhaps the best of the lot. Awful, dreadful man, and Marston uses him very well.)

My advice is to space out Marston's books. His tendency to recreate the same characters in numerous series isn't bothersome unless you plow into his oeuvre.