The Silver Locomotive Mystery by Edward Marston

Detective Inspector Colbeck is known as "The Railway detective" for the many cases he has solved on and in the railways of England. But his newest case only peripherally involves the railways at all.

When Mrs. Winifred Tompkins commissioned a silver coffeepot for herself, she contracted with a silversmith named Mr. Voke to make a replica of the 1840 Firefly in Silver as the Coffeepot. He did so, and entrusted it to his apprentice, Hugh Kellow, to deliver the coffeepot to Wales on the train.

But once he is off the train, he is killed in the hotel, and the train is stolen. Mrs. Tompkins is more angry about her precious coffeepot being stolen than about the death and disfigurement of the young man who helped make the coffeepot. All she wants is her coffeepot back!

She tries to impress this fact on Colbeck whenever she sees him, and when the thieves offer to return the coffeepot for an additional sum of money, she badgers her husband into accepting, but when that money is stolen as well through a clever strategem, she is beside herself, and berates both her husband and Colbeck.

Meanwhile, Colbeck and his subordinate, Leeming, are trying to get more information from Voke, the Silversmith who made the coffeepot. They wonder if he might know of someone who had wanted to steal it. Voke is a German, and his son, who once worked in his shop, had a falling-out with him and left to work for someone else. Voke decries his son as someone far more interested in drinking and good times than working, and Colbeck wonders if Voke's son might have stolen the coffeepot for revenge on his father, and finds out the young man has left the city.

Meanwhile, back in Wales, the coffeepot is offered to be once more returned for another large sum of money, and Mr. Tompkins goes even further this time to keep her husband and Colbeck from preventing her from buying it back. But all she gets for her money is a cheap, tin replica, which finally breaks her of her arrogance. Meanwhile, Colbeck finds Voke's son living with his new wife, making a life for himself as a silversmith in a town far from his father's shop.

But is he the thief, or did someone else steal the coffeepot? And who is responsible for the death of High Kellow? Can Detective Inspector Colbeck find the true culprit and work with the Welsh Police to bring the thieves and killers to justice? And will Mrs. Tompkins ever get her coffeepot back?

This was an unusual case for the Railway Detective, a man who loves trains and sees rail travel as the future of Britain, Neither his superiors nor his subordinate, Leeming, are quite as convinced of the beauty of railway travel, but Edward Marston does show us the wonderful side of rail travel, its quickness and ease, without mentioning its more odious aspects (clouds of cinders and black smoke that left stains on clothing being just one of these), but it certainly was faster than travel by horse, and less painful for your rear end.

But this volume is only peripherally related to trains. Although Colbeck and Leeming use the train to travel from London to Wales almost daily, the crime neither happened on a train nor on the rails. The crime simply involves a very realistically modeled train that is also a coffeepot. Not that this stops him from finding the criminal, but it was a breath of fresh air for the case, and the author really left us guessing as to identity of the thief and murderer right up until the very end of the book. Red herrings and false trails are laid left, right and center.

I liked this book, even if it wasn't quite representative of the series as a whole, but I found the mystery intriguing and enjoyed the continuation of Colbeck's friendship and romance with Madelaine Andrews- which is about to turn into something more- if only he can get her father to approve. A wonderful gem, and highly recommended.