Product Description

When railwayman Jim Stringer moves to the garish and tawdry London of 1903, he finds his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. Perplexingly, the men he works alongside have formed an instant loathing for him. And his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway? A gripping detective story, fabulously rich in atmosphere and period detail, The Necropolis Railway steams toward an unexpected conclusion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12018 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"'A brilliant murder mystery set in Edwardian London about a railway line that runs only to a massive cemetery.' Mirror 'A classy potboiler... in the best formal traditions of Dickens and Collins (let alone Christie and Chandler).' The Times"

David Kynaston, author of The City of London
'An impressive achievement ... An unsentimental yet touching chiaroscuro evocation of London in the age of steam.'

Time Out, Summer Reading Choice
'A period thriller with a difference from talented Andrew 'Bilton' Martin ... Fine period recreation, chilling tale.'

Customer Reviews

Negative reviews are on the wrong track !!
This is a book that I found impossible to put down. Set amongst the smokey engine sheds around Nine Elms, Waterloo and the eponymous necropolis railway at Brookwood at the turn of the last century, this story centres around the experiences of Jim Stringer who embarks upon his chosen career on the railways only to find that his predecessors have met a premature and sticky end. This fact is not made any more pleasant by the fact that his colleagues seem intent upon making him the next victim.
Cleverly, the author has chosen to write this atmospheric novel in the style of the "penny dreadful" novels of the time - pulp fiction that was snapped up by the public who, having had their appetite for gore increased by the sensationalist reporting of such cases as Jack the Ripper, sought out these thrillers for their amusement. Indeed, it was by selling such books at it's shops in the railway stations that W.H.Smith became established. These books were the 19th century equivalent to today's "airport literature."
If you can pick up your clues and have some knowledge of the social history of the time, you may solve the mystery before the end. However, just when you think the book has reached it's climax, events take a spectacular turn that prepare the reader for the sequel.
This book is great entertainment. Read it before it is inevitably made into a film.

A Slow Burner
I bought this book on impulse - it looked unusual and promised a read drenched in atmosphere. Initially I was a little disappointed, but I kept reading and finished it in a couple of days. It was only over the next week or so that I realised how deep impression that many of the characters, images and incidents in the book had made on me. I re-read it with relish!
This is not a work of literary genius - it wouldn't pretend to be. Rather, it is, as the blurb promises, 'a superior potboiler', and in that category I would unhesitatingly give it 5 stars. Well drawn characters, a fantastically brooding atmosphere, a great read!

The blackness of steam and 1900's London
I can still taste the blackness of the soot from the steam engines in Nine Elms shed. The darkness of every street corner is stuck in my mind. The twists of the story keep you gripped for hours.
I am not a book reader per say, but I could not put this novel down, every chapter whether short or long had another piece of the jigsaw in it, leading to the end where you realised that you had all the inside pieces but all the edges were in the post!
The pictures drawn by Andrew Martin are infectious, the dark steam engines and the even darker sheds, the inside of Jim's lodge room, even down to his own private puddle!
A wonderful read, I am waiting until I have forgotten enough of it to warrant reading it again!