The Inspector Vignoles Mysteries
7 primary works • 9 total works
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
`She does that too - but always on the last train. Yes, the last train to Brackley Central.'
Richard Irons, Magdalen College School's new mathematics master, awakens when a strange woman creeps into his compartment with a sad tale to tell - and a deadly favour to ask. But as the train reaches Brackley Central she slips through his arms like a phantom.
Detective Inspector Vignoles will never have a more curious and baffling case as he searches for a young woman apparently back from the dead, a dangerous dog on the prowl - and for the Cobra's Eye, a diamond that destroys the lives of all who touch it...
'It's a cracking good yarn. Recommended'
Steam Railway April 2012
This is the fifth book in the hugely successful Inspector Vignoles Mysteries series that currently numbers 9 books. Will be enjoyed by all who love classic historical crime fiction; This series is along the lines of Foyle's War and centres around the former Great Central Railway running through the heart of England in the 1950's.
Book 6
Book 7
Book 9
Already grappling with a sudden family tragedy, Inspector Charles Vignoles more than ever needs his trusty deputy, Sergeant Trinder, and their team in the British Railways Detective Department, to unravel a complicated murder mystery with repercussions involving a psychopathic duo whose attention no right-minded person would want to attract. Unfortunately, that's just what a young single mother and her little daughter unwittingly do as the action speeds along the former Great Central Railway line from rural Leicestershire into the urban bustle of London, Liverpool and Manchester.
It's not only the poor rabbits in the surrounding East Midlands countryside, blighted by a savage outbreak of myxomatosis, who wait almost paralysed in fear of what the future holds...
As always, Stephen Done creates a pitch-perfect background of the tough post-war years in which the warmth of community well-being jostles with the growing sense of social claustrophobia for equal billing - and steam power was still king of the rails.
This is book nine in an on-going series about Detective Inspector Charles Vignoles and his team in the fictional British Railways Detective Department, based in Leicester Central railway station in Leicester. The first book 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' is set in 1946, and with each book, the years advance with the corresponding changes in society as the bleak post-war austerity slowly relaxes and the railways try to modernise.
The series has gathered a strong and loyal following, al enjoying the gripping storylines and the plausible and atmospheric settings that range from the East Midlands area around Leicester to London Marylebone Nottingham, the oddly secluded railway town of Woodford Halse and even the seaside sunshine of New Brighton in Wirral and Trieste in former Yugoslavia!
But others think this little sparkler is worth Murder In Broadway . . .
Just when you thought it was safe to go into Cheltenham Racecourse’s Royal Enclosure to study equestrian form with Her Majesty, a deadly duo stroll in with orders to retrieve this rock from a dodgy toff, their thirst for forensic cruelty unabated from the previous Vignoles investigation, Cold Steel Rail.
Faster than `The Cheltenham Flyer’ express, the action races back and forth across the country, as Vignoles grapples with not only a rising body count stretching from the Cotswolds to London’s East End, but the naked ambition of a brash new deputy forced upon him.
The mid-1950s are brought deftly to life as Stephen Done marshals his colourful cast of characters, when steam still powered the nation’s travel.
In spite of those chill, ill winds scything across the bleak Cotswold countryside, in racing terms Murder In Broadway is a Gold Cup winner!
