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1858: Two women board a train to Oxford but when the train arrives, they are nowhere to be seen…
A Ticket to Oblivion ( Railway Detective 11)
What you need to know before your trail
It’s summer 1858 and Imogen Burhope and her maid Rhoda are off to visit Imogen’s Aunt Cassandra in Oxford. She is waiting on the platform ready to meet them and as this is a non-stop train, their journey should not be a long one. However as the train ipulls into the station, the two women are nowhere to be seen.
Immediately, the girl’s father, Sir Marcus Burnhope, an MP who is used to getting what he wants contacts Scotland Yard for help. Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are assigned to the puzzling case as there are several witnesses who say they saw the women on the train.
How can two women just disappear into thin air?
Travel Guide
A non stop train rattles its way through the English countryside. A young girl, travelling alone with her maid for the first time is excited about the prospect of this little glimpse of freedom
Detective Colbeck has been dubbed the Railway Detective by the press and public for his interest in this new mode of transport. It’s noisy and smelly and extremely noisy and he’s bothered that it seems to be changing the face of the English countryside and erasing the stagecoach and horse and cart from its roads.
“Though it stretched for less than ninety miles between its termini, the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway had, in its relatively short existence, been a boon to those within reach of tone of its many stations and halts.”
The Burnhope family, wealthy and well to do, live in Burnhope Manor (‘A wooded prison’ ) in the middle of the Worcester countryside. As they leave from the station in Shrub Hill, the setting is one of history and intrigue –
Opened in 1850, Shrub Hill still had an air of novelty about it for Imogen and Rhoda
An historical background and insight into the social classes and mores of the day are woven into a picture of Victorian England where life was dependent on which class you belonged to and whether you were male or female. Imogen’s destination in life seems to be as non stop and unpreventable as the train taking her to Oxford. A life which her parents have all mapped out but which she is keen to derail.
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Web: edwardmarston.com
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