The Blackpool Highflyer

Posted on 14 August 2018 by Andrew Martin

When railwayman Jim Stringer is assigned to drive holidaymakers to the seaside resort of Blackpool in the hot summer of 1905, he thinks he s struck lucky But his dreams of beer and pretty women soon fall away when his high speed train meets a huge millstone on the line In the months that follow as he hunts for the saboteur, Jim is drawn into a beguiling but dangerous world of eccentrics, conmen and cowards From ventriloquists to funfair salesmen, ticket clerks to dandies, everyone is a suspect in this captivating adventure. Read The Blackpool Highflyer – kino-fada.fr The hustle and bustle of Wakes week in a Yorkshire mill town abounds throughout the book and the action switches from Halifax to Blackpool, occasionally, Hebden Bridge and Southport The plot is well defined although on working a way to a conclusion it is sometimes a laborious effort Stringer, the steam detective is in fact a railway fireman throughout the volume and h...A gentle story set in 1905, on the Lancashire railway A good insight into life at the time but it may be too gentle for non Northerners There is a strong nostalgia element to the book and the main protagonist, Jim Stringer, a Fireman on the engines is a quaint chap who has simple pleasures and a strong sense of what is right and wrong The story is nice but not exciting It s got an easy feel to it b...Although The Blackpool Highflyer has a near lugubrious pace rather ironic considering the title where the actual mystery ies is are concerned, the novel would be poorer for picking up that pace Part of the reason one enjoys historical fiction is to get a sense of the flavor of living in that era And, while much historical fiction tends to focus on the upper class or that portion of the bourgeoisie on the cusp o...Blackpool Highflyer is the second book in the Jim Stringer Railway Mystery series set in Victorian England, summer of 1905 Jim is now a fireman on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Lanky for short among railway employees He and his wife Lydia, his former landlord in London, now own their own home and they re saving up for home improvements On Whitsuntide Jim and driver Clive Carter have the famous Highflyer train, capable of muchspeed than most Clive drives it too fast on an excu Blackpool Highflyer is the second book in the Jim Stringer Railway Mystery series set in Victorian England, summer of 1905 Jim is now a fireman on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Lanky for short among railway employees He and his wife Lydia, his former landlord in London, now own their own home and they re saving up for home improvements On Whitsuntide Jim and driver Clive Carter have the famous Highflyer ...The funny thing about this book is that while I read it from e cover to e cover, I couldn t really tell you much about what happened in the book, aside from the event at the beginning that drives the plot, and the ending about finding the culprit I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and it was easy to become immersed in a world over a century gone close enough to picture it, far enough away for most of it to no longer be reality Andrew Martin does a brilliant job of drawing the world in your mind The funny thing abou...Pretty sure what Andrew Martin doesn t know about trains and trams isn t worth knowing Jim Stringer has come home to the North and is involved in a train accident as he takes a mill on a Whit week excursion to Blackpool A woman dies and Jim is tormented by thoughts of how he could have done things differently as well as being unable to get the need to find out why it happened out of his head This is a fine boo...I could have dealt with the slow pace, and the great amount of trains but a book where the protaganist keeps referring to his wife as the wife page after page..no I skipped to the back and still the wife , if she s im...I know next to nothing about steam trains, so at times I was a little perplexed by the technical jargon, as I was by most of the British cooloquialisms Aside from that, I do like these Jim Stringer mysteries The characters are well drawn, especially Stringer and ...Interesting Edwardian period crime fiction, centred around the railway machines and systems that transformed village society, industry and even recreation Although in many ways this is light reading it is sociologi...Probably 3.5 stars, but that s okay I enjoyed the language and style Good characters that you could really get to know Mystery More of a twisting tale than traditional mystery book An excellent summertime read.

English
14 August 2018

Andrew Martin