'Never had I been given a tougher problem to solve, and never had I been so utterly at my wits' end for a solution.'
A signalman is found dead by a railway tunnel. A man identifies his wife as a victim of murder on the underground. Two passengers mysteriously disappear between stations, leaving behind a dead body.
Trains have been a favourite setting of many crime writers, providing the mobile equivalent of the 'locked-room' scenario. Their enclosed carriages with a limited number of suspects lend themselves to seemingly impossible crimes. In an era of cancellations and delays, alibis reliant upon a timely train service no longer ring true, yet the railway detective has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the twenty-first century.
Both train buffs and crime fans will delight in this selection of fifteen railway-themed mysteries, featuring some of the most popular authors of their day alongside less familiar names. This is a collection to beguile even the most wearisome commuter.
Most of the stories in the collection feel like good matches for the railway theme though the links in a couple of cases are somewhat tenuous.
Read my full review at Mysteries Ahoy!