What do you think?
Rate this book
End of the Line
END OF THE LINEFarrel and Saunders, two railway cops, couldn’t be more different. Farrel, the older bull, remembers the Lobo Tunnel wreck all too well. Saunders, young and inexperienced, figures that there is nothing left to learn about the six-year-old case. But their boss figures otherwise, and sends them out to dig up new evidence. Which is how they find themselves chasing down some of the accident victims who benefited the most.There’s the blind physicist—did he really lose his sight in the wreck? And the crippled ballerina—she and her husband built a ranch with their settlement money, but did she really lose the use of her legs? And the former train conductor—why, after all this time, is he sending his teenage daughter on crazy wild-goose-chases to collect on an old debt? Saunders figures that they’re chasing old leads for nothing, but Farrel has always thought that something didn’t add up here. And now they’re in a small desert town at the end of the line—on an old trail that leads right back to the beginning.
252 pages, Paperback
Published June 25, 2018
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 12, 2019
Stark House has done a solid favor to fans of noir police procedurals by reprinting this 1957 title, one of a series of five novels by husband-and-wife duo (Hu)bert and Dolores Hitchens that puts a slightly different spin on the familiar formula.
The protagonists are railroad detectives, assigned to investigate the cause of a disastrous wreck on an unnamed southwestern railroad, and in the process, check up on the injured passengers who collected damage claims from their employer. They're a mismatched pair, described by one of their colleagues as follows:
Farrel, the older of the two, is also the grumpier and less reputable, an aging bachelor who lives in a ramshackle rooming house which he shares with an alarming drinking habit and an equally alarming habit of trolling the well-intentioned landlady and periodically getting into drunken fistfights with solicitous preachers and random barflies. In a period movie adaptation, he might have been effectively portrayed by a rumpled, whiskey-breathed Robert Mitchum.
The parts of the story that deal with the railroad are believably gritty, and show some intimate familiarity with the less glamorous parts of the railroad world. This presumably draws on Bert Hitchens' own experiences as a railroad detective, which are mentioned in the about-the-author blurb. Althought the blurb seems to imply that Dolores was the more literarily inclined of the two, it seemed to me that the female characters in End of the Line are somewhat less well drawn than the men, tending toward stereotype. But that does tend to come with the territory of this genre, and perhaps it's inevitable when the story is seen through the eyes of men like Saunders and Farrel.
The viewpoint shifts throughout the story, sometimes expressing the thoughts of the idealistic, occasionally self-righteous Saunders, sometimes those of the cynically perceptive Farrel. The case they're investigating turns out to have more twists and turns than any mountain railroad, but to me the two characters, Saunders and Farrel, are more interesting than the case itself. The Hitchenses do a good job of showing how this odd couple, who initially view each other with something just short of loathing, grudgingly come to have a degree of respect for each other.
The authors manage to wrap up all the loose threads of the plot at the end, but I found it somewhat vaguely disappointing that The story as a whole intrigued me enough to prompt me to look for additional books in the series.
The protagonists are railroad detectives, assigned to investigate the cause of a disastrous wreck on an unnamed southwestern railroad, and in the process, check up on the injured passengers who collected damage claims from their employer. They're a mismatched pair, described by one of their colleagues as follows:
Calvin Saunders: A matchless example of an upstanding, clean-cut, wholesome American mama's boy.
J. Farrel: Let's be merciful.
Farrel, the older of the two, is also the grumpier and less reputable, an aging bachelor who lives in a ramshackle rooming house which he shares with an alarming drinking habit and an equally alarming habit of trolling the well-intentioned landlady and periodically getting into drunken fistfights with solicitous preachers and random barflies. In a period movie adaptation, he might have been effectively portrayed by a rumpled, whiskey-breathed Robert Mitchum.
The parts of the story that deal with the railroad are believably gritty, and show some intimate familiarity with the less glamorous parts of the railroad world. This presumably draws on Bert Hitchens' own experiences as a railroad detective, which are mentioned in the about-the-author blurb. Althought the blurb seems to imply that Dolores was the more literarily inclined of the two, it seemed to me that the female characters in End of the Line are somewhat less well drawn than the men, tending toward stereotype. But that does tend to come with the territory of this genre, and perhaps it's inevitable when the story is seen through the eyes of men like Saunders and Farrel.
The viewpoint shifts throughout the story, sometimes expressing the thoughts of the idealistic, occasionally self-righteous Saunders, sometimes those of the cynically perceptive Farrel. The case they're investigating turns out to have more twists and turns than any mountain railroad, but to me the two characters, Saunders and Farrel, are more interesting than the case itself. The Hitchenses do a good job of showing how this odd couple, who initially view each other with something just short of loathing, grudgingly come to have a degree of respect for each other.
The authors manage to wrap up all the loose threads of the plot at the end, but I found it somewhat vaguely disappointing that The story as a whole intrigued me enough to prompt me to look for additional books in the series.
September 15, 2019
Railroad detectives John Farrel and Calvin Saunders are assigned to look into a six-year old case of train sabotage when they get word that one of the conductors on the train, who has been living suspiciously large in Mexico, is back in the States. They suspect he has been shaking down survivors of the wreck for their settlement money. The ensuing investigation is of above average interest. The detective characters, Saunders the young, straight-laced mama's boy and Farrel, the depressed older alcoholic, are convincingly drawn and make for an interesting contrasts, with Farrel running into every bar for a quick double shot while Saunders wonders about reporting him.
Thanks to Bert Hitchens's background as a railroad detective, the desert and railroad backgrounds are convincing and memorable, and railroad detective procedures vivid and realistic. While the solutions to the sabotage and blackmail cases are disappointing--the sabotage barely counts as a solution, while the blackmail hinges on an improbable Keeler-styled triple coincidence, the unusual background compensates. You'll probably never read a better "railroad detective procedural."
Thanks to Bert Hitchens's background as a railroad detective, the desert and railroad backgrounds are convincing and memorable, and railroad detective procedures vivid and realistic. While the solutions to the sabotage and blackmail cases are disappointing--the sabotage barely counts as a solution, while the blackmail hinges on an improbable Keeler-styled triple coincidence, the unusual background compensates. You'll probably never read a better "railroad detective procedural."
February 15, 2026
Buddy cop story about "cinder dicks" (railroad cops). An old alcoholic burnout with experience partnered with a naive rookie as seen in many movies like Dirty Harry and Seven. What makes this interesting is the ring of authenticity of the specificity of the railway police procedural.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews