The Lost Luggage Porter

'Unerringly sharp and pioneeringly original, it locks the reader in from start to finish.' Andrew Barrow, Spectator Winter, 1906. It's Jim Stringer's first day as an official railway detective, but he's not a happy man. As the rain falls incessantly on the city's ancient streets, the local paper carries a story highly unusual by York standards: two brothers have been shot to death. Soon Jim enters the orbit of a dangerous, disturbed villain - and discovers that the two murders are barely the start of his plans . . . 'A cracking good thriller.' Independent on Sunday 'Crime narratives dispatched with a Dickensian relish . . . Delectable stuff.' Daily Express 'Has the charm of Alexander McCall Smith's simple-is-good philosophising and its addictive quality.' Metro

Andrew Martin is a journalist and novelist. His critically praised 'Jim Stringer' series began withThe Necropolis Railway in 2002. The following titles in the series, Murder at Deviation Junction and Death on a Branch Line, were shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award and, in 2008, Andrew Martin was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. The Somme Stations won the 2011 CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award.