The Necropolis Railway

Andrew Martin's first book, Bilton, is one of the funniest novels I have ever read, an acerbic, cutting and scarily prescient satire of modern journalism. With The Necropolis Railway - his third novel - Martin has changed tack considerably by writing a murder mystery potboiler set in and around Edwardian London's steamy, sooty, grimy Waterloo station.

Jim Stringer is an innocent Yorkshire youth with one ambition and one ambition only: to step up to the footplate of a locomotive and take charge of the regulator. His menial cleaning jobs at the station of his hometown aren't getting him far, so he accepts with alacrity when a gentleman from down south offers to get him a position with one of the London railway companies.

Naturally, Jim is unprepared for the noise and filth of the city, but even worse, and for reasons he cannot fathom, his arrival at Waterloo is greeted with suspicion and emnity by almost everyone he encounters. He is set to work on the Necropolis line, but almost immediately finds himself humiliated and shunned by his workmates. He quickly realises that his life is in danger and resolves to get to the bottom of the business…

The novel is steeped in the atmosphere of Edwardian London and the great steam railways. Martin has clearly researched his book extremely thoroughly and is adept at making the technicalities of locomotives interesting to the lay reader. He is particularly skilful at bringing his characters to life with the liberal use of the slang and mannerisms of the period. The Necropolis Railway did exist, transporting dead bodies from London to Brookwood cemetery near Woking in Surrey in an attempt to ease the pressure on the capital's graveyards: it forms a suitably Gothic and unnerving backdrop to the skulduggery of the plot. A great summer read, especially if you're commuting into Waterloo every day.