The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin

Summary:

When railway man Jim Stringer moves to the garish and tawdry London of 1903, he finds his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. The men he works alongside have formed an instant loathing for him - and his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway?

About the Author:

Andrew Martin (1962) is an English author and rail historian. He has worked as a journalist while writing novels. His series about detective Jim Stringer, begins with The Necropolis Railway. He has also written non-fiction books about the railway. 

The Necropolis Railway was published in 2002.

Rating:

2 stars - ★★☆☆☆

Review:

The Necropolis Railway had such promise. And it’s just my luck to get two 2-star books in a row. The title is what grabbed me. I picked this up in a second-hand book shop, not knowing anything about the book, but was just pulled in by the title. I really like the word ‘necropolis’. I’m really disappointed that this didn’t live up to my expectations. 

The characters were uninteresting, I couldn’t really keep straight who was who. No one had any redeeming features, and they all blended into one. Therefore I didn’t really care who died because I didn’t even know who they were. 

There was so much railway jargon I didn’t even understand a lot of the scene-setting stuff. I had no idea  what any of it meant so I sort of glazed over all of the railway bits. And I’m not an idiot, I can usually infer meaning from context but no chance here.

The dialogue was really hard to follow. Every conversation seemed to start in the middle, and people seemed to make random comments that I couldn’t make sense of. 

The conclusion was a stretch. There was an attempt at a twist but it was pretty random and circumstantial. Jim thinks of himself as a detective but the twist was based on him being in the right place at the right time. There were too many secrets kept from the reader so the unfolding mystery seemed random and incomplete. We were just being told what was going on rather than discovering it ourselves. I also didn’t even care because I had no relationship with the characters. 

I found that the whole book was really lacking in detail where it mattered (the story) and had far too much detail where it didn’t matter (the train stuff). Even other characters told Jim he was boring when he was talking about train stuff so I don’t know how the author didn’t get the hint. 

Also there was a really weird prostitute scene that didn’t add anything to the story, seemed really out of character for Jim and I have no idea why it was left in the story. An attempt at smut in an obviously train-enthusiast book was odd.

You might like The Necropolis Railway more than I did if you’re into trains and you know the jargon - at least more of the book would make sense to you. But otherwise, don’t be fooled by the exciting title. I’m now off to find a book about a Necropolis Railway that actually fulfils the brief.