The Lost Luggage Porter: A Jim Stringer Mystery

Martin’s riveting third Jim Stringer mystery (after 2007’s The Blackpool Highflyer) finds Jim newly made detective for the North Eastern Railway at York station in 1906. His first day starts ominously when a hotel porter’s throat is cut and Stringer’s prized copies of Railways Magazine go missing. The latter mishap takes him to the lost luggage office, where gospel-quoting porter Edwin Lund tells Stringer about a pickpocket ring working the railways. After two brothers are found shot in the rail yard, Stringer goes undercover as hapless Allan Appleby, joining two men Lund calls Brains and Blocker in lifting wallets while preparing for “the big one.” Stringer’s suffragist wife remains home awaiting childbirth, and Stringer, dreading the financial needs of parenthood, finds himself thinking about keeping some of “Allan’s” ill-gotten gains. Plenty of action, plot twists and moral quandaries help this engaging mystery pick up steam. (Jan.)