Edward Marston

As a train speeds over the Sankey Viaduct, the dead body of a man is hurled into the canal below. Inspector Robert Colbeck and Sergeant Victor Leeming take charge of their most complex and difficult case yet.

Staring on the maiden voyage of the Lusitania, American private detective George Dillman and intelligent young Englishwoman Genevieve Masefield, make a winning duo for these compelling whodunnits aboard the iconic luxury liners of the time.

1816. Leonidas Paige, notorious for satirical cartoons and newspapers fears for his safety and hires a bodyguard to protect him from his countless enemies. But the bodyguard is attacked and Paige is found dead. Identical twins Peter and Paul Skillen try to find the killers before their jealous rivals the Bow Street Runners arrive. As the brothers investigate, a group of influential political figures emerges, each with a strong motive to kill Paige....

Pentonville Prison. Wally Hibbert is serving a long sentence for arson. But after befriending and tricking one of the officers, Hibbert makes an audacious escape. Inspector Marmion, the detective who arrested Hibbert, is warned to watch his back, but it seems that Hibbert has another target in his murderous sights. However, the investigation is mired by confusion, the identities of killer and victim become increasingly ambiguous. An inmate at an internment...

1817. Dawn breaks on a summer's day in Chalk Farm, London, and the scene is set for a duel between a lady's two ardent admirers. Paul Skillen has been teaching Mark Bowerman how to shoot properly, and although he is not sanguine of his chances, stands as his second. Although the duel is broken up, the passions behind the duel seem to spill out into the full light of day when one of the two duellists is found dead, shot between the eyes.

1865. A passenger train stands ready to depart amid the bustle at York station. The flurry of passengers and porters, the swooping pigeons and barking dogs are thrown into a state of turmoil when an explosion rips through the brake van of the train killing guard Jack Follis. In response to a summons from the North Eastern Railway, Inspector Robert Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are sent to investigate. Was it an accident, deliberate vandalism or targeted...

1817. Upon receiving a letter from an old family friend, Clemency Van Emden returns from Holland to find her father dead. She refuses to believe the middle-aged man died of natural causes, and the suspicious circumstances of his life during the past few months compel her to ask Peter and Paul Skillen for help. When his body is revealed missing from the casket, the twins embark on a chase of funerary agents, barmaids and body snatchers, trying to solve...

1860. Following a string of successful performances, the Moscardi Circus is travelling by train to Newcastle for their next show. Amongst the usual railway hubbub the animals have been loaded, the clowns, now incognito, are aboard and Mauro Moscardi himself is comfortable in a first-class compartment with a cigar. Yet a collision on the track with a couple of sleepers causes pandemonium: passengers are thrown about, animals escape and the future of...

Detective Inspector Colbeck and his assistant Inspector Leeming are called in when the body of an ex-hangman is found on an excursion train, murdered with a noose. When a second victim is killed the same way, Colbeck knows he must act fast to catch the murderer before more lives are lost.

February 1918. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy are pulled from their beds to attend a sinister siege involving three burglars where one policeman has already been shot dead. Attempts at talking the men in the house into surrender are met with stony silence so the police proceed to batter down the door and Keedy bravely leads the way. A gunshot is heard. Keedy is hit. As Keedy is rushed to hospital, Marmion is on...