Showing results by author "Edward Marston" in All Categories

May 1915. As zeppelin bombs fall on London and with the sinking of the Lusitania, anti-German hysteria reaches fever pitch and attacks on German immigrants surge. Not even the West End of London is immune. Jacob Stein's bespoke tailoring business comes under brutal attack, leaving his safe ransacked, his daughter, Ruth, raped and Jacob dead.

The ordered calm of Gloucester Abbey is shattered by the murder of one of the monks. The Abbey becomes paralysed with fear and the Abbot is ill-equipped to deal with such a heinous crime, especially as suspicion inevitably falls on the brothers themselves. Ralph Delchard, a former soldier in the era-defining Battle of Hastings, and Gervase Bret, an accomplished lawyer, are investigating a local land dispute when news of the vicious murder reaches them.

On the shocking discovery of a passenger's body on the Great Western Railway excursion train, Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant, Sergeant Victor Leeming, are dispatched to the scene. Faced with what initially appears to be a motiveless murder, Colbeck is intrigued by the murder weapon - a noose. When it emerges that the victim had worked as a public executioner, Colbeck realises that this must be intrinsically linked to the killer's choice of weapon.

1859. St Mary's Church, Spondon. A little girl playing hide-and-seek jumps into a freshly-dug grave to find a dead man already occupying it. It is the body of Cedric Norton, a senior director of the Midland Railway. Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming travel to Derbyshire to investigate.

The frontier zone of Archenfield in Herefordshire is a no-man's-land, which acts as a bulwark between Norman-controlled English soil and the Welsh border. Soldier Ralph Delchard and lawyer Gervase Bret arrive in Hereford for what looks like one of their more straightforward assignments from the crown, to settle conflicting claims to land in Archenfield. Ralph and Gervase are shocked to discover the murder of a principal witness, a wealthy landowner who was burned alive in his own home. No clues remain except an enigmatic red dragon cut into the turf in front of the house.

Following a string of successful performances along the west coast, the Moscardi Circus is travelling by train to Hexham on the Newcastle to Carlisle Railway for their next show. Yet a collision on the track causes pandemonium. When the headless body of a woman is discovered in nearby woodland, Inspector Colbeck is desperate to lend assistance, however a reluctant Superintendent Tallis forbids him from doing so.

November 1907. George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield sail from Liverpool to New York on the maiden voyage of the luxurious Mauretania. Employed by the Cunard Line again as private detectives, they pose as passengers on what proves to be a very eventful crossing. Dillman is instrumental in rescuing a crew member from being washed overboard in severe weather, but he is unable to save one of the first-class passengers from the same fate.

The small village of Maldon is controlled by the wealthy and rapacious FitzCorbucion family, led by Hamo FitzCorbucion, the lord of Blackwater Castle. When his eldest son, Guy, is found murdered, an enraged Hamo demands justice. Into this charged atmosphere arrives a tribunal, led by soldier Ralph Delchard and lawyer Gervase Bret. Surveying the lands of Maldon, the tribunal detects irregularities in various deeds, and plans to call the FitzCorbucion family to account.

East Anglia, 1861. Alone in a first-class carriage, the Swarbricks are robbed at gunpoint. But when the universally admired Swarbrick fights back, the train robber takes more than money and jewellery, killing the man working to unify East Anglia's tangle of railway networks. Inspector Colbeck is brought in from London, but as Swarbrick's glowing reputation begins to crumble, the line of investigation isn't clear.

1917. The Lotus Hotel offers sanctuary for its exclusively female clientele, attracting the cream of London's society. But a dead body found in one of its rooms is hardly good for business, and when it is discovered that the woman was neither a guest nor a member of staff, the Lotus' reputation as a safe haven is cast in doubt. Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy are dispatched to look into the events at the hotel and soon suspect foul play.

December 1860. Headed for the morning shift at the Swindon Locomotive Works is an army of men pouring out of terraced houses built by the GWR, a miniature town and planned community that aims to provide for its employees from cradle to grave. Unfortunately, boilersmith Frank Rodman is headed for the grave sooner than he'd expected, or he will be once his missing head is found. Colbeck, the Railway Detective, finds his investigation into Rodman's murder mired in contradictions.

New York, 1908. Private detectives George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield plan to take a break from work upon the Cunard Line’s fleet with the offer of employment upon the Minnesota, a freighter and passenger vessel, which is bound for the Far East. Although the pair are investigating the possibility of a smuggling operation on the route, at first all appears to be smooth sailing, but the voyage takes a dire turn when a fiery Catholic missionary is murdered and it proves to be the first in a series of crimes that plague the crossing.

Pentonville Prison. Wally Hibbert is serving a long sentence for arson. But after befriending and tricking one of the officers, Hibbert makes an audacious escape. Inspector Marmion, the detective who arrested Hibbert, is warned to watch his back, but it seems that Hibbert has another target in his murderous sights. However, the investigation is mired in confusion, and the identities of killer and victim become increasingly ambiguous.

September 1907. George Dillman sets sail from Liverpool to New York on the Lusitania's maiden voyage. Posing as a passenger, Dillman is in fact an undercover detective hired by the Cunard Line to keep an eye out for petty crimes. But after some uneventful days aboard, the ship’s blueprints are stolen and then a body is found. As Dillman works to get to the bottom of the crimes, he makes an unusual friend, first-class passenger Genevieve Masefield, and the two uncover secrets aboard the ship that prove explosive.

Ralph Delchard, a soldier who fought at the Battle of Hastings, and Gervase Bret, a talented lawyer, have been commissioned by William the Conqueror to look into irregularities brought to light during the compilation of the Domesday Book. A man’s body is found mutilated in Savernake Forest and the residents of Bedwyn sleep uneasy at night, fearing a monster stalking the town. When Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret arrive, they discover that the locals are harbouring dark secrets and that the real killer may be a little closer to home....

Halloween 1861. A special train with two carriages steams across the Lake District at night on its way to a place notorious for its record of supernatural incidents. Lighting inside the carriages is poor, and without warning, the lamp goes out in the last compartment of the second carriage, plunging it into darkness. When the special reaches the end of its journey, the passengers pour out on to the station platform. There are almost 60 of them in all, laughing and jostling.

New York, 1908. While waiting to embark on the Caronia, the Cunard Line’s famous ocean liner, private detectives George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield are startled to witness the boarding of a man and woman in shackles. They discover that these prisoners are being brought back to England by Scotland Yard to face trial for murder. Over the course of the crossing, while managing purse-snatchers, burglars and drug traffickers, Dillman and Masefield come to believe that the captured couple may not be the vicious criminals some might think.

June 1917. While German Gotha bombers raid London from above, a man's body is fished from the Thames below. The man had been garrotted and his tongue cut out, and as the killer has taken care to remove identifying items, Detective Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy struggle to name the victim before they can begin properly with their investigation. The list of suspects grows ever longer, and as Marmion wrangles with the case, he and his family must also contend with their anxieties for his now-missing son. The interminable presence of war and pitched battles between rival gangs suggest the Home Front is more insecure than ever before.

London, 1851. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest in mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating. In an audacious attack, the London to Birmingham mail train is robbed and derailed, causing many casualties. Planned with military precision, this crime proves a challenge to Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck who fights to untangle a web of murder, blackmail and destruction.

Young Imogen Burnhope and her maid Rhoda board a non-stop train to Oxford to visit her Aunt Cassandra, who waits on the platform at Oxford station where the train terminates, to greet them. Only they never arrive. All the passengers alight but the two women are nowhere to be seen. The train is searched and the coachman swears he saw them board onto first class, but they seem to have vanished into thin air. The Railway Detective must unravel the mystifying web of their disappearance before Imogen and Rhoda vanish into oblivion for good.