Series: Railway Detective

Derby Day at Epsom Downs. A multitude of people crowd to watch the races: dukes and dustmen, bishops and beggars, privileged ladies and prostitutes. The gamut of Victorian society and a hotbed for crime and crooks of all kinds. With the nation a-flutter in the run up to this national event, a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train...

December 1864. As a cold winter wind scours the Worcestershire countryside, an excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the impact is minimised, but the passengers are alarmed. The first person to alight is Cyril Hubbleday, the...

An excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the impact is minimised, but the sharp jolt alarms the passengers. The first person to alight is Arthur Heale, the man in charge of the excursion to the delightful...

As a train speeds over the Sankey Viaduct, the dead body of a man is hurled into the canal below. Inspector Robert Colbeck and Sergeant Victor Leeming take charge of their most complex and difficult case yet. Hampered by the fact that the corpse has nothing on him to indicate his identity, they are baffled until a young woman comes...

Tragedy on the Branch Line by Edward Marston follows Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming as they are summoned by the Master of the college to investigate Pomeroy's untimely demise. With the Boat Race on the horizon, the president of the Cambridge Boat Club believes their Oxford rivals are responsible for the death of their talented cox. Yet it seems Pomeroy...

Tragedy strikes close to the Detective Department when an old friend of Superintendent Tallis walks to meet a speeding train head on. The suicide, prompted by the disappearance of the man's wife, has shocked the local community and leaves plenty for Inspector Robert Colbeck, the Railway Detective, to uncover. Whispers and rumours abound, but did the dead man, Captain Randall,...

1859. St Mary's Church, Spondon. A little girl playing hide-and-seek jumps into a freshly-dug grave to find a dead man already occupying it. It is the body of Cedric Norton, a senior director of the Midland Railway. Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming travel to Derbyshire to investigate. Immerse yourself in the gripping mystery of Timetable of Death by Edward Marston....

1865. A passenger train stands ready to depart amid the bustle at York station. The flurry of passengers and porters, the swooping pigeons and barking dogs are thrown into a state of turmoil when an explosion rips through the brake van of the train killing guard Jack Follis. In response to a summons from the North Eastern Railway, Inspector Robert...

A goods train speeds through the Sapperton Tunnel, but disaster strikes before it can reach the other end as it collides with an unusual blockage on the line: seven sheep penned onto the tracks. Specially requested to investigate the carnage in Gloucestershire, Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are confronted with a bizarre case unlike anything they've encountered before. Stephen Rydall,...

1857. On the LNWR train to London, a criminal is being escorted to his appointment with the hangman. But the wily Jeremy Oxley, conman, thief, and murderer, has one last ace up his sleeve—a beautiful and ruthless accomplice willing to do anything to save her lover, including cold-blooded murder. When the Railway Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck learns that Oxley, his...

Young Imogen Burnhope and her maid Rhoda board a non-stop train to Oxford to visit her Aunt Cassandra, who waits on the platform at Oxford station where the train terminates, to greet them. Only they never arrive. All the passengers alight but the two women are nowhere to be seen. The train is searched and the coachman swears he saw...

Fear on the Phantom Special takes place on Halloween, 1861. A special train with two carriages steams across the Lake District at night, heading to a place notorious for its record of supernatural incidents. Most of those on board have been fortified by alcohol, so the mood is boisterous. Without warning, the lamp goes out in the last compartment of...

1866. On a train bound for Portsmouth, an elegant woman shares a first-class compartment with a gentleman in a celebratory mood. Giles Blanchard reveals his lecherous side as the journey gets underway, but he will never reach his home on the Isle of Wight alive. This chance encounter is to prove fortuitous for the woman and her partner-in-crime. They find...

Shrewsbury, 1866. At the Station Hotel, staff struggle in vain to rouse Mr Julian Lockyer, who requested an early wake-up call to catch a train. When they force open the door, they are horrified to discover a bloodied corpse in the bed, a knife still in the dead man's hand. Inspector Robert Colbeck, the Railway Detective, is dispatched to investigate...

1857. Joel Heygate is the popular stationmaster at Exeter St David's railway station. So when the charred remains of a body are discovered in the embers of the town's annual Bonfire Night celebration, everyone is horrified to discover that they belong to Mr Heygate. Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant Victor Leeming are dispatched to Exeter with all due...

April 1867. Amid the usual bustle at King's Cross, a large wooden box is loaded onto a train bound for Lincoln, its watchful escort insistent it remain in sight. But a daring robbery derails those plans, leaving behind a dead man and a vanished treasure. Detective Inspector Colbeck is called in after a plea from the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral...

London, 1851. The London to Birmingham mail train is robbed and derailed, injuring the driver and others aboard. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest is mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating. Planned with military precision, this crime challenges the new Police Force to its limits and leads Detective...

1860, Wimborne, Dorset. Rebecca Tullidge, miserably married to her callous husband, is having an affair with a railway officer, whom she finds dead on the railway tracks. Determined to win votes for the upcoming election of mayor, Mr Feltham calls for Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Lemming to solve the hideous crime, which takes longer than anticipated. With a pregnant wife...

Following a string of successful performances, the Moscardi Circus is travelling by train to Newcastle for their next show. Yet a collision on the track with a couple of sleepers causes pandemonium: passengers thrown about and animals escaping into the night. When the body of a woman is discovered in nearby woodland, Inspector Colbeck is desperate to lend assistance, believing...