Blackpool Highflyer is the second book in the Jim Stringer Railway Mystery series set in Victorian England, summer of 1905. Jim is now a fireman on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, 'Lanky' for short among railway employees. He and his wife Lydia, his former landlord in London, now own their own home and they're saving up for home improvements. On Whitsuntide Jim and driver Clive Carter have the famous Highflyer train, capable of much more speed than most. Clive drives it too fast on an excursion run, and they hit an obstacle on the train track, stopping the train. One woman is concussed by the violent stop, and when Jim tries to lift her, she dies. Jim's pride and joy in driving a train are dimmed by the experience, and he spends the remainder of the book trying to find out who placed the obstacle on the track and why. Jim is a likable protagonist. He's a straight arrow kind of guy, who is uncomfortable when he finds out how good friends and acquaintances are cheating the system. He loves and respects his wife a bit more it seems than most men of his time. He wasn't born into a life of privilege, and takes hard work in stride. The plot is a little dull, its underlying conflict not compelling, and the story drags in the middle, but the railway jargon and minutiae of daily life are fascinating enough to continue reading. A wealth of detail gives the story historical authenticity whether or not it supports the plot, for example the cigar factory where Jim and George go to get 'A' or 'B' cigar 'seconds'. It is enjoyable enough reading to recommend the series, but is by no means a thriller, as a cover blurb attests.”
Pretty sure what Andrew Martin doesn't know about trains and trams isn't worth knowing. Jim Stringer has come home to the North and is involved in a train accident as he takes a mill on a Whit week excursion to Blackpool. A woman dies and Jim is tormented by thoughts of how he could have done things differently as well as being unable to get the need to find out why it happened out of his head. This is a fine book about an Edwardian mill town and also a hymn to the wonders of Northern seaside culture pre WW1. With its at times dreamlike evocations of events and an eye for historical detail, you do sometimes have to remind yourself that Andrew Martin isn't actually writing from memory, rather than from obviously painstaking research. The 'whodunnit' plot line isn't as important as his recreation of a working class life in the North Edwardian Britain. Plus I love how the Co-operative Women's Guild is featured heavily and how his wife describes herself as a socialist.
What do You think about The Blackpool Highflyer (2015)?
It's a mystery novel, but of the sort where the main character is wrong about pretty much everything and just sort of blunders into the answer after exhausting every other possibility. Like a railroad train, the plot just keeps chug-chug-chugging along until it gets to the end, but it's not very satisfying. I don't remember the first book's perpetrator, but the one in this installment didn't make a whole lot of sense. I have to remember not to pick up the next book in this series when I'm at the library. At least it wasn't very long.
—Andy
I think I enjoyed this second book in the Jim Stringer series more than the first - no one writes Edwardian slang like Andrew Martin, and the narrative voice is so compelling - so much so that the (admittedly lightweight) storyline is largely irrelevant. Jim Stringer would quite probably be, in person, a crashing bore, obsessed as he is with detail, railways and the everyday, but somehow this makes for a hugely entertaining read. The era is evoked so naturally that reading these books really is like being transported back in time and place. Jim's wife is fantastic, and a brilliant foil. A goodhearted, fun read.
—Victoria Radford
A gentle story set in 1905, on the Lancashire railway. A good insight into life at the time but it may be too gentle for non-Northerners. There is a strong nostalgia element to the book and the main protagonist, Jim Stringer, a Fireman on the engines is a quaint chap who has simple pleasures and a strong sense of what is right and wrong. The story is 'nice' but not exciting. It's got an easy feel to it but sometimes I was wondering if we would get to any action rather than just background info on all the various characters. It's innocuous and that's not meant to be too damning but it's no 'Girl with a Dragon Tattoo'.
—Gary
