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The Somme Stations. Andrew Martin (2012)

by Andrew Martin(Favorite Author)

3.52 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0571249647 (ISBN13: 9780571249640)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Faber & Faber

series

Jim Stringer

review 1: This was the first book I had read in Andrew Martin's series of novels about railway detective Jim Stringer.It tells the tale of how Stringer and others who work on the train network in York join up for service in the First World War.The story gives an insight into how battalions of amateur soldiers were formed from communities and pitched into the horrors of trench warfare on the Western Front.There are tensions in the group and not everyone gets on.When one of the men dies and is presumed murdered while they are preparing to travel to France, the mystery unravels as the battalion goes into battle.Martin creates some colourful characters and reveals the challenges the Army faced in creating a railway to deliver munitions to the front lines.This is a hugely enjoyable thril... moreler and whets the appetite for other books in the Jim Stringer series.
review 2: The Somme Stations is the seventh Jim Stringer railway detective series and the first I've read. It can certainly be read as a standalone. The strength of the book is in placing the reader in the lives of a small group of men as they go through their training and onwards to the frontline, and the historical detail concerning the use of miniature railway system to transport ammunition and supplies along the front. The lead character is rather unassuming character and relatively uncharismatic, which I found a somewhat welcome change to some detective series. He is surrounded by a motley crew of characters that are well penned. Where I had problems was with respect to the plot. The book has a ponderous start and a weak end. In fact, with the exception of the time on Spurn Head, the time in Blighty (the beginning and end) felt flat and listless. The ending in particular didn't work for me. At one point, one of the characters said something like, 'You worked it out from that?', pretty much as I was thinking the same thing. The mystery element relies on unlikely coincidences, an unlikely confession in terms of location (where an entire carriage of men can potentially overhear), and leaps of imagination, and it's hard to believe that Stringer suddenly developed a Poirot-like mind. I also think the book would have also been stronger if it had been written in the third person. It would have allowed the narrator more scope to describe and explain both the main plot and to contextualise the First World War. Overall, the bulk of the book, especially the time in France, was an engaging and informative read and made the book worth reading; it was just a shame that the mystery wasn't quite up to scratch. less

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