The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin
Jan. 12th, 2007 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
When railwayman 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?
As a historical novel, I can't fault Andrew Martin for his skilled recreation of a by-gone age. He easily transports you back to the turn of the last century, helping you experience the hussle and bustle, the casual deprivation, the customs and the language of the age. He has clearly put a lot of research into how trains were run during this time and with his character of Arthur Hunt he hints at the growing social disaffection and the rise of the socialists.
In particular, I have to commend his use of slang in the dialogue - although some of it looks out of place given the way we speak today, it does have an authenticity to it that helps you believe in the story. It's ironic though that this great strength should also be one of the weaknesses in the book because in using authentic language and terminology I sometimes felt a little loss as to what was going on. This was particularly the case in the sections describing the operation of the trains and the structure of the railyard. A glossary would have really helped me out in this regard so I had something to flip to if I felt myself getting confused.
The other issue I had is that whilst the set up of the story in The Blurb On The Back is an exciting mystery, the execution is a little ... understated. In particular, although Martin strives hard to show Stringer as being in fear for his life, I didn't believe that he ever was, even towards the end. In fact, there seemed to be no urgency to his predicament - Stringer drifts from episode to episode and in the one scene that should be genuinely chilling, you know that he's going to get out okay without too much difficulty.
As a character, Stringer is well handled. He's naive, enthusiastic about the railway and I could buy into his not being alert to the dangers of being too honest. However, I found the romance element with his landlady to be a little frustrating - again, it's down to the way he drifts into it, but I just couldn't believe it. Nor could I believe the interlude with the whore house - even allowing for the fact that Stringer has been drinking, it seems somewhat out of character for him to decide he "needed a fuck", not least when he's been so careful in the narration to date to not use bad language.
Rowland Smith is being set up as a recurring villain but he's someone I'm not sure really works. There's no sense of his being a criminal mastermind because there's simply not enough of him on the page to get hold of. I also thought that his motivation was somewhat convoluted, strained to fit the plot rather than fitting it naturally.
The Verdict:
A book that offers more for fans of historical fiction than it does mystery buffs, whilst there is potential in the series the plot here needed to be developed further so that it had enough steam to carry you through to the end.
When railwayman 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?
As a historical novel, I can't fault Andrew Martin for his skilled recreation of a by-gone age. He easily transports you back to the turn of the last century, helping you experience the hussle and bustle, the casual deprivation, the customs and the language of the age. He has clearly put a lot of research into how trains were run during this time and with his character of Arthur Hunt he hints at the growing social disaffection and the rise of the socialists.
In particular, I have to commend his use of slang in the dialogue - although some of it looks out of place given the way we speak today, it does have an authenticity to it that helps you believe in the story. It's ironic though that this great strength should also be one of the weaknesses in the book because in using authentic language and terminology I sometimes felt a little loss as to what was going on. This was particularly the case in the sections describing the operation of the trains and the structure of the railyard. A glossary would have really helped me out in this regard so I had something to flip to if I felt myself getting confused.
The other issue I had is that whilst the set up of the story in The Blurb On The Back is an exciting mystery, the execution is a little ... understated. In particular, although Martin strives hard to show Stringer as being in fear for his life, I didn't believe that he ever was, even towards the end. In fact, there seemed to be no urgency to his predicament - Stringer drifts from episode to episode and in the one scene that should be genuinely chilling, you know that he's going to get out okay without too much difficulty.
As a character, Stringer is well handled. He's naive, enthusiastic about the railway and I could buy into his not being alert to the dangers of being too honest. However, I found the romance element with his landlady to be a little frustrating - again, it's down to the way he drifts into it, but I just couldn't believe it. Nor could I believe the interlude with the whore house - even allowing for the fact that Stringer has been drinking, it seems somewhat out of character for him to decide he "needed a fuck", not least when he's been so careful in the narration to date to not use bad language.
Rowland Smith is being set up as a recurring villain but he's someone I'm not sure really works. There's no sense of his being a criminal mastermind because there's simply not enough of him on the page to get hold of. I also thought that his motivation was somewhat convoluted, strained to fit the plot rather than fitting it naturally.
The Verdict:
A book that offers more for fans of historical fiction than it does mystery buffs, whilst there is potential in the series the plot here needed to be developed further so that it had enough steam to carry you through to the end.
