Charmingly quaint but overall terrible. Makes me think of those horrible BBC costume dramas. ( )

This is the third novel in the Railway Detective series set in the mid 19th century. They are settling into a familiar pattern, fairly decent page turners set against an interesting historical background, though with slightly annoyingly clichéd central characters whose personal idiosyncrasies are rather beaten over the reader's head at every opportunity, especially those of Chief Superintendent Tallis, Inspector Colbeck's boss, and Sergeant Learning, Colbeck's underling. The dialogue still reads as rather stilted to me. The plot was interesting enough, being based around sabotage at a French railway project being built by an English engineer, but felt rather similar to the plot of the first novel, as it involves a wealthy man, Sir Marcus Hetherington, trying to carry out the sabotage through others, albeit that his motives were based on nationalism rather than the Luddite attitudes of the landowner in the first novel. I think I'll pick up following novels in the series only when they are going cheap. ( )

A lively story about interesting times; early railways in England and France. The second installment in a good series ( )

The Railway Viaduct starts off with an artist painting a ground's eye view of the Sankey Viaduct when a train passes over it and a man's body falls from a car into the water. Railway Detective Robert Colbeck is tasked to solve the murder. His investigations take him and his crew of quirky co-workers across the channel to France, where a British entrepreneur is expanding that country's rail lines, and employing a huge crew of Irish migrant workers to do so. As Colbeck gets closer to the solution, he discovers that the fate of the man on the train is linked to much larger matters.

Meanwhile, maverick Irish police officer Brendan Mulryne must prove himself to a haughty, distrusting superior and, in his free time, Colbeck pursues his relationship with Madeleine Andrews by asking her to help him get closer to one of the suspects. But as he pursues the viaduct murderer, he also courts increasing danger.

This is the third book in the Victorian era Railway Detective series. The characters are well written and interesting. I enjoy reading historical mysteries set in the Victorian period. I've learned quite a bit about trains as well. I definitely plan to read the other books in this enjoyable series.
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The Railway Viaduct (The Railway Detective #3) by Edward Marston – The third Railway Detective book presents a complex story that begins with Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Victor Leeming trying to solve the murder of a Frenchman named Gaston Chabal, whose body had been hurled from a train into a canal in Britain. Colbeck quickly discovers that Chabal had been an engineer working on an important rail line expansion in France. The investigation takes Colbeck and Leeming to France where the murder investigation becomes linked to criminals that are trying to stop construction of the rail line. Both Colbeck and Leeming suffer vicious attacks during this investigation. It’s an interesting story that provides much information about the hard-working and hard-living 19th Century railroad workers. I liked this book very much. ( )