Book description
On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies
trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the
bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival -
even before they departed for France, a member of Jim's unit had been
found dead. During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades
must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions
to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where
high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation and
trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within, and as a
ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the
original killing, the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim
himself . . .
Andrew Martin is a journalist and novelist. The Somme Stations
is the seventh book in his much-loved 'Jim Stringer' series which
began with The Necropolis Railway in 2002. The third and fourth books
in the series, Murder at Deviation Junction and Death on a Branch
Line, were shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award
and, in 2008, Andrew Martin was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the
Library Award.
