A train hits a snow drift in the frozen Cleveland Hills. In the process of clearing the line, a body is discovered, and so begins a dangerous case for struggling Edwardian railway detective, Jim Stringer.
The story is set in winter in 1906. After his adventures as an amateur sleuth, Jim Stringer is now an official railway detective, working from York Station for the mighty North Eastern Railway Company. But he's not a happy man. As the rain falls incessantly on the city's ancient, neglected streets, the local paper carries a story highly unusual by York standards: two brothers have been shot to death.
When his train is nearly derailed, a young Yorkshire railwayman once more turns sleuth. Since his previous escapade (The Necropolis Railway, 2007), engine cleaner Jim Stringer has gotten closer to his lifelong dream of driving a train. As fireman aboard The Blackpool Highflyer, he gets to ride alongside rugged driver Clive Carter.
A chance encounter leads young Jim Stringer, a railway porter, to move from Yorkshire to Waterloo, and a better job. But the London of 1903 is a world of garish pubs and tawdry brothels, boxed in by towering blank-faced factories.
This absorbing book tells the story of Mars since the dawn of mankind's curiosity for celestial wonders. It covers everything, right from our ancient beliefs, through the revolution in our concepts of the cosmos around us in the 1600s, to the present day knowledge and beyond. It takes the reader on a journey all the way to the futuristic visions of science fiction and terraformed Mars with conditions suitable to Earth life. The story is told in a readable form with an absence of technical jargon. The text is supported by informative imagery and a simple, but inspiring layout with some special features such as a "flip movie" of the rotation of Mars.
