Jim Stringer Series

A train hits a snow drift in the frozen Cleveland Hills. In the process of clearing the line a body is discovered, and so begins a dangerous case for struggling Edwardian railway detective, Jim Stringer.

Jim's new investigation takes him to the mighty blast furnaces of Ironopolis, to Fleet Street in the company of a cynical reporter from The Railway Rover, and to a nightmarish spot in the Highlands. Jim's faltering career in the railway police hangs on whether he can solve the murder - but before long the pursuer becomes the pursued, and Jim finds himself fighting not just for his job, but for his very life as well.

The Lost Luggage Porter

by Andrew Martin

Published 4 May 2006

The story is set in winter in 1906. After his adventures as an amateur sleuth, Jim Stringer is now an official railway detective, working from York Station for the mighty North Eastern Railway Company. But he's not a happy man. As the rain falls incessantly on the city's ancient, neglected streets, the local paper carries a story highly unusual by York standards: two brothers have been shot to death. Meanwhile, on the station platforms, Jim Stringer meets the Lost Luggage Porter, humblest among the employees of the North Eastern Railway company. He tells Jim a tale which leads him to the roughest part of town, a place where the police constables always walk in twos. Jim is off on the trail of pickpockets, 'station loungers' and other small fry of the York underworld. But then in a tiny, one-room pub with a badly smoking fire he enters the orbit of a dangerous, disturbed villain who is playing for much higher stakes.

The Blackpool Highflyer

by Andrew Martin

Published 19 August 2004

When railwayman Jim Stringer is assigned to drive holidaymakers to the seaside resort of Blackpool in the hot summer of 1905, he thinks he's struck lucky. But his dreams of beer and pretty women soon fall away - when his high-speed train meets a huge millstone on the line. In the months that follow as he hunts for the saboteur, Jim is drawn into a beguiling but dangerous world of eccentrics, conmen and cowards. From ventriloquists to funfair salesmen, ticket clerks to dandies, everyone is a suspect in this captivating adventure.

Death on a Branch Line

by Andrew Martin

Published 5 June 2008

It is the summer of 1911 and as Britain is gripped by paranoia about German spies and secret preparations for war, railway detective Jim Stringer decides to set out for a much-needed holiday.

But before he can leave he finds himself escorting a young aristocrat, Hugh Lambert, who is on his way to be executed for the murder of his father. When Hugh warns that a second murder is imminent in his isolated village, Jim sees a chance to kill two birds with one stone. And so, as he visits the village with his wife Lydia on the pretext of holidaying, Jim finds he has one weekend in which to stop another murder and unravel a conspiracy of international dimensions . . .

'Enough historical details and rural oddbods for a BBC serial, a baffling plot and - most importantly - good writing.' Scotland on Sunday

'Fascinating . . . Altogether an entertaining read.' Crimesquad.com

'An eccentric and engaging novel.' Sunday Times

'The period detail is wonderful . . . The story builds up a good head of steam early on and rattles along nicely to a satisfying conclusion.' Guardian

The Somme Stations

by Andrew Martin

Published 3 March 2011

On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival - even before they departed for France, a member of Jim's unit had been found dead.

During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation and trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within, and as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing, the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself . . .

The Necropolis Railway

by Andrew Martin

Published 19 August 2002

A chance encounter leads young Jim Stringer, a railway porter, to move from Yorkshire to London, enticed by the prospect of becoming a railway man 'of the right sort'. But when he arrives in the Waterloo of 1903, it is to discover a world of garish pubs and tawdry brothels boxed in by towering, blank-faced factories - a world that judders perpetually to the din of the trains on the giant viaducts overhead. Jim finds that his duties are mysteriously confined to the strangest corner of the South Western's business: a railway line that runs to an enormous cemetery. Still more 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?

The Baghdad Railway Club

by Andrew Martin

Published 5 June 2012

Baghdad 1917. Captain Jim Stringer, invalided from the Western Front, has been dispatched to investigate what looks like a nasty case of treason. He arrives to find a city on the point of insurrection, his cover apparently blown - and his only contact lying dead with flies in his eyes. As Baghdad swelters in a particularly torrid summer, the heat alone threatens the lives of the British soldiers who occupy the city. The recently ejected Turks are still a danger - and many of the local Arabs are none too friendly either.

For Jim, who is not particularly good in warm weather, the situation grows pricklier by the day. Aside from his investigation, he is working on the railways around the city. His boss is the charming, enigmatic Lieutenant-Colonel Shepherd, who presides over the gracious dining society called The Baghdad Railway Club - and who may or may not be a Turkish agent. Jim's search for the truth brings him up against murderous violence in a heat-dazed, labyrinthine city where an enemy awaits around every corner.

The Last Train to Scarborough

by Andrew Martin

Published 5 March 2009

One night, in a private boarding house in Scarborough, a railwayman vanishes, leaving his belongings behind...

It is the eve of the Great War, and Jim Stringer, railway detective, is uneasy about his next assignment. It's not so much the prospect Scarborough in the gloomy off-season that bothers him, or even the fact that the last railwayman to stay in the house has disappeared without trace. It's more that his governer, Chief Inspector Saul Weatherhill, seems to be deliberately holding back details of the case - and that he's been sent to Scarborough with a trigger-happy assistant. And when Jim encounters the seductive and beautiful Amanda Rickerby a whole new personal danger enters Jim's life...

Night Train to Jamalpur

by Andrew Martin

Published 31 October 2013

North East India, 1923. On the broiling Night Mail from Calcutta to Jamalpur, a man is shot dead in a first class compartment. Detective Inspector Jim Stringer was sleeping in the next compartment along. Was he the intended target? Jim should have known that his secondment to the East Indian Railway, with a roving brief to inspect security arrangements, would not be the working holiday he had hoped for. The country seethes with political and racial tension. Aside from the Jamalpur shooting, someone is placing venomous snakes - including giant king cobras - in the first class compartments of the railway.

Jim also has worries on the home front: his daughter has formed a connection with a Maharajah's son, who may in turn have a connection to Jim's incredibly rude colleague, the bristling Major Fisher. Jim must do everything he can to keep his family safe from harm, as he unravels the intrigues that surround him...