Echoes Down the Line

Fatal Connections and Echoes Down the Line take the reader to the Peak District. The wild country contrasts with the quarrying and mining that has gone on there for centuries but by the 1870s they are in conflict, driven by the Industrial Revolution.

In the first book (Fatal Connections) a rail accident almost masks a murder and a story of lust, greed and violence unfolds as the crime is investigated. Before it's over, Sgt Sam Spray, the investigating officer saves his senior, Chief Spt. Wayland, from an embarrassing mistake and a tentative love affair develops between Sam and his landlady Lizzie Oldroyd only to be thwarted by Sam's reservations about an inheritance.

This is followed in book number 2 (Echoes Down the Line) by a story of Fenian violence. The blowing up of a train carrying Royalty is averted and a conspiracy from within the Dublin administration is uncovered as well as long held family secret. Wayland is courted by an old army acquaintance but sees through the subterfuge with Sam's help and the story ends with a problem for Sam and Lizzie, whose relationship has stuttered into life through the narrative, which is solved in Book 3.