The Railway Viaduct
The Railway Viaduct is the third title in the "Railway Detective" series of detective mystery novels written by Keith Miles under the pseudonym Edward Marston. Set in 1852, it is about a murder on a train which is investigated and ultimately solved by two Scotland Yard detectives, Inspector Robert Colbeck and Sergeant Victor Leeming. The title place is the Sankey Viaduct on the former Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The novel was published in 2006 by Allison & Busby of London. The graphic on the book cover is from T. T. Bury's 1831 depiction called "Viaduct across the  Sankey Valley" in his "Liverpool and Manchester Railway" series of paintings. According to the publishers in a 2018 news release, the series has been optioned for television adaptation by Mammoth Screen. Plot introduction. A French railway engineer is killed on a train crossing the Sankey Viaduct and his body is flung over the parapet into the canal below. Plot summary. Inspector Robert Colbeck, Sergeant Victor Leeming and their former colleague Brendan Mulryne follow the trail to France where they meet Thomas Brassey, whose construction of the Mantes to Caen railway is being sabotaged. First Leeming and then Mulryne must pose  as navvies to unravel a conspiracy. Characters in "The Railway Viaduct". Main characters (all recurring). "For a full description of the main characters, who all recur throughout the series, see The Railway Detective". Historical references. The Detective Department of the Metropolitan Police Force (the Met) was founded in 1842 and so was only ten years old in 1852, when the story is set.