The Necropolis Railway - Andrew Martin

A chance encounter leads young Jim Stringer, a railway porter, to move from Yorkshire to London, enticed by the prospect of working his way up to driving expresses, and becoming a railway man 'of the right sort'. But when he arrives in the Waterloo of 1903, it is to discover a world of garish pubs and tawdry brothels boxed in by towering, blank-faced factories - a world which judders perpetually to the din of the trains on the giant viaducts overhead.Jim, set to work cleaning locomotives, finds that his duties are mysteriously confined to the strangest corner of the South Western's business: a railway line that runs to an enormous cemetery. Still more perplexingly, the men he works alongside in the cold, clattering engine shed 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? A murder mystery fabulously rich in atmosphere and period detail, The Necropolis Railway is a gripping detective story which steams toward an unexpected climax.