From the author of The Necropolis Railway and The Blackpool Highflyer comes another atmospheric thriller of sabotage, suspicion and steam. It's Jim Stringer's first day as an official railway detective, working from York Station for the mighty North Eastern Railway Company. On the station platform, Stringer meets the Lost Luggage Porter, humblest among the railway's employees. He tells Jim a tale which leads him to the roughest part of town, a place where the police constables always walk in twos. Again, with the help of his brilliant and fearless wife, Jim is off on the trail of pickpockets, 'station loungers' and other small fry of the York underworld. But then, in a tiny, one-room pub with a badly smoking fire Stringer enters the orbit of a dangerous, disturbed villain who is playing for much higher stakes.