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Jim Stringer #10
Powder Smoke
'A great deal of well-researched railway detail [and] killer lines, without which no Andrew Martin novel is complete' Irish TimesOn a chilly December evening in 1925, while walking to meet his wife at York railway station, detective inspector Jim Stringer finds himself face to face with a man pointing a revolver straight at him. In a flash Jim's thoughts go spinning back to a hot day at the end of August, when he attended a Wild West sideshow at the York Summer Gala with his boss, Superintendent Saul Weatherill, aka 'the Chief'. He remembers the moody young sharpshooter who led the show, his strange Arizonian yet English accent, and above all, his deadeye skills...Andrew Martin's much-loved railway policeman Jim Stringer returns in his most dangerous investigation yet.
- GenresMystery
230 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 21, 2021
2 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Martin
191 books105 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Andrew Martin (born 6 July 1962) is an English novelist and journalist.
Martin was brought up in Yorkshire, studied at the University of Oxford and qualified as a barrister. He has since worked as a freelance journalist for a number of publications while writing novels, starting with Bilton, a comic novel about journalists, and The Bobby Dazzlers, a comic novel set in the North of England, for which he was named Spectator Young Writer of the Year. His series of detective novels about Jim Stringer, a railwayman reassigned to the North Eastern Railway Police in Edwardian England, includes The Necropolis Railway, The Blackpool Highflyer, The Lost Luggage Porter, Murder at Deviation Junction and Death on a Branch Line. He has also written the non-fiction book; How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man's Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts.
Andrew Martin (born 6 July 1962) is an English novelist and journalist.
Martin was brought up in Yorkshire, studied at the University of Oxford and qualified as a barrister. He has since worked as a freelance journalist for a number of publications while writing novels, starting with Bilton, a comic novel about journalists, and The Bobby Dazzlers, a comic novel set in the North of England, for which he was named Spectator Young Writer of the Year. His series of detective novels about Jim Stringer, a railwayman reassigned to the North Eastern Railway Police in Edwardian England, includes The Necropolis Railway, The Blackpool Highflyer, The Lost Luggage Porter, Murder at Deviation Junction and Death on a Branch Line. He has also written the non-fiction book; How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man's Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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February 10, 2021I really enjoy the way Andrew Martin writes, very informal and talkative. I’ve read the other Jim Stringer books and enjoyed them immensely. Jim and Lydia are strong characters and very likeable, however this story left me feeling disappointed.
I hope this doesn’t put anyone off reading Martin’s other books, they’re excellent, this is still a good read but...
The new characters were shallow and predictable. I didn’t like Cyn, too cliched, and her husband was, well, wet!
The sudden illness and then recovery of the chief was unbelievable, too obvious a tool to swing the plot.
The ending was very disappointing, too sudden and unfinished, I would have liked a few ends tied up, eg, did Jim resolve his problem of being ‘left behind’ as all of his family progressed?
Did he get a promotion? Was Bernadette accepted by the drama school...
I had my N. Yorkshire map in front of me and loved plotting the routes taken during the various journeys, I had a virtual trip of my own. Planning my next excursion, when we’re let out.
I hope this doesn’t put anyone off reading Martin’s other books, they’re excellent, this is still a good read but...
The new characters were shallow and predictable. I didn’t like Cyn, too cliched, and her husband was, well, wet!
The sudden illness and then recovery of the chief was unbelievable, too obvious a tool to swing the plot.
The ending was very disappointing, too sudden and unfinished, I would have liked a few ends tied up, eg, did Jim resolve his problem of being ‘left behind’ as all of his family progressed?
Did he get a promotion? Was Bernadette accepted by the drama school...
I had my N. Yorkshire map in front of me and loved plotting the routes taken during the various journeys, I had a virtual trip of my own. Planning my next excursion, when we’re let out.
September 6, 2025
Following excursions to the first world war and to India in previous books, we pickup Jim Stringer – now a detective inspector – back on home turf with the York railway police.
There’s a dramatic opening as Jim is confronted by a gun man on a station platform. The book then proceeds to a series of flashbacks of the events leading up to this incident. It’s a world of carnival wild west shows, trashy cowboy fiction and film making.
Jim Stringer is not one of the great detectives, he’s a bit of a plodder, but the story is carried along on a wealth of historical detail. The ending is somewhat downbeat but carries a certain poetic justice.
There’s a dramatic opening as Jim is confronted by a gun man on a station platform. The book then proceeds to a series of flashbacks of the events leading up to this incident. It’s a world of carnival wild west shows, trashy cowboy fiction and film making.
Jim Stringer is not one of the great detectives, he’s a bit of a plodder, but the story is carried along on a wealth of historical detail. The ending is somewhat downbeat but carries a certain poetic justice.
November 17, 2024
Powder Smoke (Jim Stringer Book 10) by Andrew Martin = a review
This is the 10th and last book in the Jim Stringer series. Many reviews pan this book and it was with some dread and trepidation that I started this book. I almost deleted it from my Kindle library; but thought - NO! you've come this far with Jim, nowt right to not see it through (notice the Jimism there?).
But rather than a regular review, I thought I would list some quotable quotes from Mr Martin's fine text, hoping that these would give you a flavour of the book and help you make up your own mind about what you do with the book…
…modern trains often had open seating, whereas the old-fashioned bad lads had favoured the secrecy of compartments. Jim, too, preferred compartments. He also favoured gaslight over electricity and slow, stopping trains to ‘streamlined’ expresses – and maybe this was to be expected of any railway copper of twenty years’ service and a somewhat romantic bent.
The Chief came out of the Police Office.
‘Owt doing?’ Jim asked.
‘Nowt,’ said the Chief.
In Thomas’s Jim ordered a pint of mild. The place was cold and the fire smoked, as did the three other men in the public bar, who all looked thoroughly miserable. Somebody ought to remind them they were still, to some extent, alive.
There is no greater bugbear to the feminine sex than the double chin, which imparts a look of settled middle age to a woman – even though she still be in her twenties.
Lydia handled the check-in. That was always her job, being the kind of socialist who loved big, expensive hotels.
In deluxe hotels, she would dispatch Jim to the pub before they made love (reasoning, Jim presumed, that his performance was better in that department for a certain amount of alcohol)…
He put on one of the towelling dressing gowns. There didn’t seem anything to choose between them. When he walked back into the dressing room, Lydia took in the dressing gown.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘In the bathroom.’
‘But where?’
‘In the cupboard.’
‘You’d think they’d lay them out on the bed,’ said Lydia, who was herself still laid out on the bed, now on her back with her hands behind her head. She didn’t shave under her arms. None of the Co-Operative ladies did, apparently.
‘It’s very nice, anyway,’ she said.
Jim removed the dressing gown. ‘And that’s very nice as well,’ Lydia said, which of course she had to really.
…he began to feel a bit lonely. He took from his pocket the LNER Magazine and read the most interesting-looking article, namely, ‘The Railway Motor Bus Service Between Ballater and Braemar’ by W. M. G. Grigor, station master at Portgordon.
The Chief was walking away again, lighting one of his cigars. Lydia was nearby. Jim said, ‘I’m off for a pint of brown ale in the Parlour Bar. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably have two.’
‘You do that, Jim,’ she said.
Did any of that help?
Regards,
Peter
This is the 10th and last book in the Jim Stringer series. Many reviews pan this book and it was with some dread and trepidation that I started this book. I almost deleted it from my Kindle library; but thought - NO! you've come this far with Jim, nowt right to not see it through (notice the Jimism there?).
But rather than a regular review, I thought I would list some quotable quotes from Mr Martin's fine text, hoping that these would give you a flavour of the book and help you make up your own mind about what you do with the book…
…modern trains often had open seating, whereas the old-fashioned bad lads had favoured the secrecy of compartments. Jim, too, preferred compartments. He also favoured gaslight over electricity and slow, stopping trains to ‘streamlined’ expresses – and maybe this was to be expected of any railway copper of twenty years’ service and a somewhat romantic bent.
The Chief came out of the Police Office.
‘Owt doing?’ Jim asked.
‘Nowt,’ said the Chief.
In Thomas’s Jim ordered a pint of mild. The place was cold and the fire smoked, as did the three other men in the public bar, who all looked thoroughly miserable. Somebody ought to remind them they were still, to some extent, alive.
There is no greater bugbear to the feminine sex than the double chin, which imparts a look of settled middle age to a woman – even though she still be in her twenties.
Lydia handled the check-in. That was always her job, being the kind of socialist who loved big, expensive hotels.
In deluxe hotels, she would dispatch Jim to the pub before they made love (reasoning, Jim presumed, that his performance was better in that department for a certain amount of alcohol)…
He put on one of the towelling dressing gowns. There didn’t seem anything to choose between them. When he walked back into the dressing room, Lydia took in the dressing gown.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘In the bathroom.’
‘But where?’
‘In the cupboard.’
‘You’d think they’d lay them out on the bed,’ said Lydia, who was herself still laid out on the bed, now on her back with her hands behind her head. She didn’t shave under her arms. None of the Co-Operative ladies did, apparently.
‘It’s very nice, anyway,’ she said.
Jim removed the dressing gown. ‘And that’s very nice as well,’ Lydia said, which of course she had to really.
…he began to feel a bit lonely. He took from his pocket the LNER Magazine and read the most interesting-looking article, namely, ‘The Railway Motor Bus Service Between Ballater and Braemar’ by W. M. G. Grigor, station master at Portgordon.
The Chief was walking away again, lighting one of his cigars. Lydia was nearby. Jim said, ‘I’m off for a pint of brown ale in the Parlour Bar. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably have two.’
‘You do that, Jim,’ she said.
Did any of that help?
Regards,
Peter
January 29, 2021
At the moment I am only about half way through the book, there is a risk I may not finish it though!
I have always liked the Jim Stringer series of books and the way in which Andrew Martin crafts the storylines.
This is different however it seems to jump about way too much, a lot of time devoted to creating characters that frankly I found 'boring and utterly uninteresting'
Instead of struggling to put the book down, I find I am struggling to bother picking it up.
___
Update
I have now finished the book and have come to the conclusion that I didn't really enjoy it at all!
It was almost as if the first half was written by somebody else, before the author returned for the second half! I realise that he was trying in places to tell a story within a story but it was over elaborate and frankly quite boring.
My greatest feeling is one of disappointment.
I have always liked the Jim Stringer series of books and the way in which Andrew Martin crafts the storylines.
This is different however it seems to jump about way too much, a lot of time devoted to creating characters that frankly I found 'boring and utterly uninteresting'
Instead of struggling to put the book down, I find I am struggling to bother picking it up.
___
Update
I have now finished the book and have come to the conclusion that I didn't really enjoy it at all!
It was almost as if the first half was written by somebody else, before the author returned for the second half! I realise that he was trying in places to tell a story within a story but it was over elaborate and frankly quite boring.
My greatest feeling is one of disappointment.
March 10, 2024
How lovely to be back in the company of Jim Stringer. And after a few adventures linked to other places in the world, he is back where he should be in Yorkshire! I enjoyed the background to this story taking us to Knaresborough and Whitby, as well as York. But there is an intriguing story of films and America here too. Cinema is gaining in popularity and Jim is a tiny bit starstruck. Will we see more of Jim soon?
April 2, 2025
Didn't enjoy this one, but to be fair, not my usual genre of choice. Picked it up from a recommendation. It's set in the early 20th Century, so some references/terms were unfamiliar, but nonetheless, quaint. Just didn't get the whole cowboy thing at the beginning - but later becomes apparent it's part of the "fair scene". It's based around the trains with nostalgic memories of the steam age. The storyline was good. Some of the characters were interesting as they developed, but again with early 20th century attitudes/ misogyny. Not keen on reading more from this author - good writing - just not my cup of tea.
June 20, 2023
Another cracking and atmospheric novel from Andrew Martin
I always look forward to the next Jim Stringer book and this did not disappoint. It really catches the atmosphere of the post-Great War period in Yorkshire and the characters are very well developed.
I always look forward to the next Jim Stringer book and this did not disappoint. It really catches the atmosphere of the post-Great War period in Yorkshire and the characters are very well developed.
November 9, 2021
Really enjoyed the latest book in the Jim Stringer series
January 28, 2025
Really liked it. Sorry that it's the last one.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews