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tessisreading2's review against another edition
4.0
Mysteries with a dense narrator (or one with a fixation on something like, well, trains) can sometimes be frustrating but this one was very well done.
ingridboring's review against another edition
4.0
Maybe 3.5? If I didn't like trains so much it wouldn't have been so good.
monicamjw's review against another edition
2.0
Good plot and interesting setting; just found it difficult to work through the London-speak as an American.
ageckocalledachilles's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Middle was a bit meh. End was great, tied things up nicely. The romance was rushed and convoluted in places but sweet at the end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Vomit, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Classism and Alcoholism
winterzeshoek's review against another edition
3.0
Liked the idea behind the book, and it was quite interesting to read about Edwardian London. The characters didn't seem to be very well-rounded, though, and although it was written in the first person, I didn't feel like I knew Jim by the time I finished the book. The mystery wasn't much of a mystery and could have been worked out better, but still three stars for originality and promise for the rest of the series.
margeryk101's review against another edition
1.0
Awful, awful book. Won't be reading any more Jim Stringer books.
bev_reads_mysteries's review against another edition
2.0
The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin is first book in a series starring railway man Jim Stringer. It is billed on its cover as "an ingenious and atmospheric thriller" (Daily Express, London) and "a masterful novel about a mad, clanking fog-bound world (Simon Winchester, author of The Professor & the Madman), but quite honestly ingenious, thriller and masterful aren't the words that come to mind. Atmosphere....now I will admit that it's got plenty of that. There are bits where the atmosphere is perfect--the reader is plopped down in Edwardian England and it feels right. But then there's that dream-like, misty-edged, through-the-looking-glass atmosphere that makes the reader stop and flip back through several pages, look up, and say to oneself, "What the heck just happened there?" It doesn't help that all sorts of unfamiliar terms (mostly railway, but not all) are thrown about like everyone knows an encyclopedia's worth of railway jargon.
The story is, on the surface, an interesting and inventive one. It's 1903 and Jim Stringer, a butcher's son from Yorkshire, dreams of being an express driver--he do love him some speed. His dad would prefer that he follow in his footsteps, but sees the trains in his son's eyes and agrees to railway work...as a porter. But Stringer meets Rowland Smith, a man with connections to the London and South Western company, and it looks like he's on his way to fulfilling his dream.
He heads to London where he meets nothing but trouble. He isn't assigned to the section of the railway he expects. Instead, he's going to be serving on engines that transports coffins along the "graveyard line." And his railway mates aren't--matey, that is. He's not sure if they just don't like him because he seems to have an "in" with the bosses or if they think he's there to spy on them or because he's come from the country and doesn't fit in with their ways. And then he discovers that his predecessor just disappeared....and there seem to be an unusual amount of railway deaths related to the Necropolis Railway. The more he hears about his predecessor, the more he wants to find out what happened to him....and his questions and investigations soon put his life in danger. Will he find out the truth before he receives his own one-way ticket on the graveyard train?
When I saw this book at the Friends of the Library Bookstore and I read the synopsis, I was instantly intrigued. I wish I could say that the book lived up to its promise--but it didn't. The best parts were the atmosphere (the good, historical atmosphere) and the last-minute twist at the end. And the few good quotes I was able to glean. The negatives: 1) Jim Stringer really isn't a character that I ever got terribly interested in. I kept reading because I wanted to finish the book, not because I just had to know what happened. 2) I hate ambiguous endings. Yes, we find out who did it. But will justice be served? Who knows. What's in store for Stringer? Beats me. 3) Railway jargon out the wazoo. Unfamiliar terms are okay as long as they're explained--either overtly or through context--and the reader's not inundated with them.
Overall: Decent mystery buried in the weird, dream-like atmosphere and excessive railway terms. Okay, but not terrific for two and a half stars.
This review was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
The story is, on the surface, an interesting and inventive one. It's 1903 and Jim Stringer, a butcher's son from Yorkshire, dreams of being an express driver--he do love him some speed. His dad would prefer that he follow in his footsteps, but sees the trains in his son's eyes and agrees to railway work...as a porter. But Stringer meets Rowland Smith, a man with connections to the London and South Western company, and it looks like he's on his way to fulfilling his dream.
He heads to London where he meets nothing but trouble. He isn't assigned to the section of the railway he expects. Instead, he's going to be serving on engines that transports coffins along the "graveyard line." And his railway mates aren't--matey, that is. He's not sure if they just don't like him because he seems to have an "in" with the bosses or if they think he's there to spy on them or because he's come from the country and doesn't fit in with their ways. And then he discovers that his predecessor just disappeared....and there seem to be an unusual amount of railway deaths related to the Necropolis Railway. The more he hears about his predecessor, the more he wants to find out what happened to him....and his questions and investigations soon put his life in danger. Will he find out the truth before he receives his own one-way ticket on the graveyard train?
When I saw this book at the Friends of the Library Bookstore and I read the synopsis, I was instantly intrigued. I wish I could say that the book lived up to its promise--but it didn't. The best parts were the atmosphere (the good, historical atmosphere) and the last-minute twist at the end. And the few good quotes I was able to glean. The negatives: 1) Jim Stringer really isn't a character that I ever got terribly interested in. I kept reading because I wanted to finish the book, not because I just had to know what happened. 2) I hate ambiguous endings. Yes, we find out who did it. But will justice be served? Who knows. What's in store for Stringer? Beats me. 3) Railway jargon out the wazoo. Unfamiliar terms are okay as long as they're explained--either overtly or through context--and the reader's not inundated with them.
Overall: Decent mystery buried in the weird, dream-like atmosphere and excessive railway terms. Okay, but not terrific for two and a half stars.
This review was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
captainfez's review
3.0
This is the first novel in the still-ongoing Jim Stringer series. It is also an unapologetic love-letter to life at the footplate. If you don't like trains, you probably should give this a miss. It's similar to the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin series in terms of detail and research. I didn't find this off-putting, though others may. It's very much a Boys' Own style of writing - though given that this pretty accurately describes the narrator's maturity level, it's fine.
Other than the detailed train info - though I'm sure there's a trainspotter somewhere who's picked Martin up on some minute errors - the novel is a brief excursion into the life of a young bloke in Edwardian London, pursuing a life in the steam trade. This love of trains, however, sees him mixed up in murders, romance and burial ground schemes.
The end couple of chapters strike me as being very much in the manner of older style mysteries - there's a real sense of AHA! going on when the lie of the land is revealed, though I won't spoil them. I can't tell if it's intentional or if it's a weakness in Martin's writing, but it seems to work. Reading Fleming these days it's possible to enjoy the action of the story while being tickled by the construction of some parts of it, or the quaint nature of some technologies or methods or narration, and I think the same applies here.
If you're not into trains you could pass this by - but I suspect you'd be missing out. This isn't heavyweight literature, but it seems a lot of love has gone into the creation of Jim Stringer, so I think I'll be checking out the following (six, seven?) books.
Other than the detailed train info - though I'm sure there's a trainspotter somewhere who's picked Martin up on some minute errors - the novel is a brief excursion into the life of a young bloke in Edwardian London, pursuing a life in the steam trade. This love of trains, however, sees him mixed up in murders, romance and burial ground schemes.
The end couple of chapters strike me as being very much in the manner of older style mysteries - there's a real sense of AHA! going on when the lie of the land is revealed, though I won't spoil them. I can't tell if it's intentional or if it's a weakness in Martin's writing, but it seems to work. Reading Fleming these days it's possible to enjoy the action of the story while being tickled by the construction of some parts of it, or the quaint nature of some technologies or methods or narration, and I think the same applies here.
If you're not into trains you could pass this by - but I suspect you'd be missing out. This isn't heavyweight literature, but it seems a lot of love has gone into the creation of Jim Stringer, so I think I'll be checking out the following (six, seven?) books.
pussreboots's review against another edition
1.0
http://pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2015/comments_04/necropolis_railway.html
dc60's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't expect much of this book when I came to it. I had heard the author talking about railways and I knew a little about the Necropolis Railway, so I thought it would be a mildly interesting diversion. I greatly underestimated it...
The basic story is that in 1903 a young Yorkshire lad goes to London to take up a job with a railway company, a job he hopes shall one day lead him to driving the trains. He is a complete railway enthusiast, and views trains and all their accoutrements through distinctly rose-tinted glasses. He soon finds that the chance acquaintance which led him to the job has in fact dropped him in the thick of a very tense situation; there has been at least one mysterious death recently, and the rest of the Nine Elms work force views him with deep suspicion as a potential bosses' spy.
The mystery develops, and the sense of real threat facing the green youth, Jim Stringer, is made to feel tense enough, but it isn't the mystery which raises this book out of the ordinary. The author has done a remarkable job in bringing to life the railways at the start of the 20th Century. The characters speak, especially Stringer (the narrator), wholly in what seems to be slang appropriate for the era. In the wide-eyed youth whose viewpoint we share, we get a view of the railway as exciting, new technology, the greatest of achievements and the forefront of the wave of progress carrying humanity forward into the new century. This is still a largely gaslit world, though electrification is encroaching, even some of the Underground railways are electrified; but for transport of people and goods over long distances this is the unchallenged age of the great steam engines, and the excitement of being near such awesome, advanced machinery is conveyed perfectly with never a false note struck.
It is worth reading solely to feel the past come alive; it doesn't hurt that there's a decent mystery and a real threat to the protagonist pulling you along through the grubby environs of Waterloo and Nine Elms. I shall probably read more in this series, to see if the quality is sustained.
The basic story is that in 1903 a young Yorkshire lad goes to London to take up a job with a railway company, a job he hopes shall one day lead him to driving the trains. He is a complete railway enthusiast, and views trains and all their accoutrements through distinctly rose-tinted glasses. He soon finds that the chance acquaintance which led him to the job has in fact dropped him in the thick of a very tense situation; there has been at least one mysterious death recently, and the rest of the Nine Elms work force views him with deep suspicion as a potential bosses' spy.
The mystery develops, and the sense of real threat facing the green youth, Jim Stringer, is made to feel tense enough, but it isn't the mystery which raises this book out of the ordinary. The author has done a remarkable job in bringing to life the railways at the start of the 20th Century. The characters speak, especially Stringer (the narrator), wholly in what seems to be slang appropriate for the era. In the wide-eyed youth whose viewpoint we share, we get a view of the railway as exciting, new technology, the greatest of achievements and the forefront of the wave of progress carrying humanity forward into the new century. This is still a largely gaslit world, though electrification is encroaching, even some of the Underground railways are electrified; but for transport of people and goods over long distances this is the unchallenged age of the great steam engines, and the excitement of being near such awesome, advanced machinery is conveyed perfectly with never a false note struck.
It is worth reading solely to feel the past come alive; it doesn't hurt that there's a decent mystery and a real threat to the protagonist pulling you along through the grubby environs of Waterloo and Nine Elms. I shall probably read more in this series, to see if the quality is sustained.