Customer Reviews

The Iron Horse (Inspector Robert Colbeck) (Railway Detective 4)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"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.