The Necropolis Railway

November 13, 2006
First published in the U.K. in 2002, Martin's U.S. debut offers smooth prose, but suffers from its callow, 19-year-old protagonist, Jim Stringer. In 1903, Stringer leaves York for London to make something of himself on the railway, a consuming passion of his for years. Despite his letter of reference from a director of the London and South Western Railway, Stringer receives a hostile reception at Necropolis Railway and is soon delegated to dirty scut work connected with the transport of coffins to nearby cemeteries. When he learns his predecessor mysteriously disappeared, Stringer pursues an amateur investigation that turns dangerous after several people turn up dead. Basil Copper made better use of the creepy, atmospheric Necropolis Railway setting in his 1980 novel, Necropolis
, and the almost impossibly naïve Stringer stumbles on the truth rather than displaying genuine cleverness.

December 1, 2006
It is 1903, and young Jim Stringer leaves rural England for London, seeking to drive locomotives for the South East Railway. His first job is running coffins from city morgues to suburban cemeteries, but Jim learns that his predecessor has disappeared and that he is suspected by his coworkers of being a company spy. If readers can get past the unfamiliar railway jargon, this suspense-filled debutfirst published in England in 2002will appeal to those who like mysteries with unusual settings. Martin lives in London.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2006
When this creepy-crawly suspense tale was originally published in the UK last year, the " London Times" called it "a classy potboiler . . . in the best traditions of Dickens and Collins (let alone Christie and Chandler)." There may be just a touch of hyperbole there, but the novel is certainly worthy of praise. The atmosphere is first-rate: Martin does a stunning job of bringing to life the era when steam locomotives chugged from London through the British countryside. And he intensifies by giving his hero, Jim Stringer, a job on one of those trains--not just any train but the one that carries bodies from London to burial on the city's outskirts. A refugee from the poverty of Yorkshire, Jim had been reduced to cleaning women's lavatories in railway stations before getting his big break and landing on the Necropolis Railway, where he endures hostile coworkers and working conditions only slightly better than those in the toilets. Even worse is his growing suspicion that a former worker may have met with foul play. The lurid tone and Jim's growing uneasiness lead to a supremely scary climax. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)