A review by kmg365
The Railway Detective by Edward Marston

1.0

This is the very definition of a 1-star book: I didn't like it. When I one-star something, it's not uncommon for me to be well beyond dislike. I'm often mad at how bad the book was, and how absolute drivel gets published. I completely understand how this got published, and I even understand why this is a successful series with more than 20 volumes to date.

I can't remember what made me track down the first book in this series. I'm not particularly a railroad fan, but I do enjoy books set in England. When I had been listening for an hour or so, I looked up the year it was written, because it was coming across as something written perhaps seventy to a hundred and twenty years ago. But it was written in 2004. It's not that the text was wonderfully evocative of the year 1850-- it's that the text was so dry, straightforward, and devoid of modern sensibilities, and the characters were straight out of central casting. That explains why I didn't like it-- and why enough other people did like it that the series is still chugging along today.

So while I won't be reading any more in the series, if you are someone who doesn't want to read any swear words, who wants the characters to be clearly identifiable as either good or bad, enjoys a dash of romance so mild and brief that you may miss it altogether, and wants a plot to unfold exactly as you'd expect it to with no surprises-- you might love it.