The Railway Detective (Inspector Robert Colbeck)
by Edward Marston

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Book Reviews of The Railway Detective (Inspector Robert Colbeck)

Book Review: The Plot's the Thing
Summary: 3 Stars

The Railway Detective goes back to England in 1851, just a few years after Scotland Yard was founded. In this case, a military-like train robbery has succeeded in capturing a fortune in gold coins. This happened despite tight security, lots of guards, a stout safe and a secret combination. Hmmm. How could it have been done? Curiously, there's also an attempt to sabotage the rail line to unnecessarily derailing a locomotive. What's that all about?

In the course of the case, you meet fearless, dedicated Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his preferred partner, Sergeant Leeming who pick through the details to figure out how this inside job was pulled and by whom. Along the way, Colbeck finds himself becoming interested in Madeleine Andrews, daughter of the locomotive engineer who was seriously injured in the robbery. That interest proves to be a problem for both of them.

The plot is obviously inspired in part by an actual train robbery that occurred in England in 1855 which is described in fascinating detail in The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton, a book that I much preferred to this one. If you only want to read about one Victorian train robbery, I suggest that you choose that one instead.

The background of the story is the conflict between landowners and the railways as they spread out over England like so many spider webs in the 1840s and 1850s. There's also some lively conflict between the traditional police who draw on their military backgrounds and the new methods of plain clothes detectives. There's also a nice tie-in to the Great Exposition of 1851 and the famous Crystal Palace.

The story makes many references to 1851 but doesn't seem authentic in many ways. For example, the dialogue seems contemporary. But that's okay. The plot is fun.

The characters are so restrained though by the plot and having a stiff upper lip that you don't get much of a sense of them. It will take many books in this series before the characters will probably surpass comic book cutouts.

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