THE MURDER OF CROWS

Stephen Done (Hastings Press, £8.99)

Nostalgia for the railway steam era often induces a warm glow of memories of swathes of smoke and damp, smelly upholstery in the carriages. But there is nothing cosy about Stephen Done’s second crime novel.

Indeed, there is a distinct chill blowing through the investigations of Insp Charles Vignoles and Sgt John Trinder from the detective department of the railway police on the old Great Central Railway that ran from London Marylebone to Brackley, Woodford Halse, Leicester, Nottingham and stations north.

A young woman’s mutilated body is found beside the track, partly buried in a snowdrift in the big freeze of 1947. Their problem-solving is complicated by a higher officer insisting they put their mind to theft from colliery trains. Suspicion for the coal thefts points to the inhabitants of a displaced persons camp at the former airfield at Finmere, near Bicester.

Not surprisingly, the two inquiries come together when the body of a woman from the camp is found at Finmere station. She had been on her way home from a cinema show at Woodford Halse (David Lean’s version of Noel Coward's play Blithe Spirit).

Into the mix come a pair of young railway lads, who might be termed the comic relief. As in Done’s first novel, they inadvertently play an important part in solving the crimes.

As befits a railway preservation enthusiast, Done peppers his narrative with plenty of knowledge of steam locomotives and the 1940s in general.

There is also another strand of nostalgia as Done heads all his chapters with the title of popular songs of the time, coupled with the singer or band who made the tune famous.

And there is a bit of back chat between Vignoles and Trinder over the relative merits of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby as interpreters of song.

Done also throws a magnificently worked- out red herring across the path of Vignoles and Trinder.

So The Murder of Crows is highly recommended to lovers of steam trains who don’t mind being frozen to the marrow by murder, snow and nasty-looking crows circling the sky.