Murder On The Railways ed' by Peter Haining (1996)

"The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage" - Ronald A Knox

This is quite an early (1947) Sherlock Holmes pastiche, written in a bid to bolster the sales of the flagging "Strand Magazine". Knox was regarded as one of THE authorities on Holmes, and was the first to pen a proper critical analysis of the stories. Thousands have since followed.

As for "instant remainder" titles, there are many companies set up to publish just these kinds of books, which go straight to bargain retailers (my first novel, the controversial and utterly terrifying "Heebie Jeebie Holiday" was published by just such a firm). The price on the cover is never the actual price, but is there to make the books look even more of a bargain. Folk might think twice about buying a book with a £1.99 tag printed on the back, assuming it to be a cheaply produced hack job, whereas a book with a £6.99 price printed on the back but a sticker proclaiming £1.99 looks like a great deal.

Headhunter by Jan Carol Sabine: This story takes place on the Long Island Railroad, and Haining’s introduction remembers the multiple murders that once took place there when a young man began randomly shooting at commuters with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, killing five and injuring eighteen more. Since then, the railroad has been featured in many books and stories.

The author of Headhunter, he says, regularly used the Long Island Railroad.

The well-dressed businessman who enters the train-station waiting room opens a newspaper that has a headline reading: THIRD HEADLESS BODY FOUND.

The headhunter’s victims have all been found along the Line Island Railroad, and their heads have not been found.

Three other people occupy the waiting room: a young man and woman and an elderly bag lady. The young woman has a large cooler on the floor beside her – which is odd, because it’s a bleak time of year. The well-dressed man notices that there appears to be the rounded end of a club sticking out of the bag lady’s bag of clothes. The young man doesn’t seem to be in the same class as the young woman beside him.

When the train stops, the young couple step outside; but shortly the sound of a disturbance reaches the others, and the businessman goes to see if he can help.
Short and tense, nothing in this grim story is quite what it seems to be.

Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds by Ray Bradbury: One unbearably hot summer in Manhattan, Will Morgan and Ned Ammniger, rivals who hate each other, pass each other daily as they commute by train.

Walking home from the station, Will follows a cool breeze down an alley to a shop where, abruptly, we know we’re in Bradbury Land, because a sign advertises the services of a witch, and the cool breeze leads to a giant block of ice supported on saw horses, wherein can be seen vaguely, a beautiful woman’s body.

In the pages that follow, Will is offered the world. Or at least the love of a stunningly beautiful woman, sexual favours, professional success, financial security and home cooked meals - if he only has the courage to accept the offer.

Will is, however, a cautious man.

With more prose than plot, this is still enjoyable Bradbury (circa 1975).


The Man With No Face by Dorothy L Sayers: Returning from the Bank Holiday weekend, the talk among the passengers in the carriage is of murder. A man was murdered at nearby East Felpham, his body found on the sands, face destroyed with a broken bottle.

A First Class passenger fairly easily solves the mystery of how the man was killed by a murderer who left no footprints before the train reaches its destination, so it’s no great surprise when he reveals himself to be Lord Peter Wimsey. And naturally, Inspector Winterbottom (another passenger), asks him if he’d like to help the police with the investigation.

The murdered man is identified as Mr Correggio Plant, and The Evening Views promises to publish a portrait of him.

Due to Wimsey’s interest in art, he’s asked to view the painting and he meets the artist, a Thomas Crowder, who was employed by the victim.

The first few pages of the story, where the diverse group of passengers discuss the murder, show a good eye for ‘types’ though slight snobbishness; for all that, it’s humorous and enjoyable.


Death Decision by William F Nolan: William F Nolan is (you'll know) best known for his novel Logan’s Run.

In this story Leonard Blair is taking his two children, Michael and Lucy, on a train journey from Jefferson to Los Angeles, where Blair’s wife, the children’s mother has just died.

The children hate their father, who had turned from their mother as she sank into alcoholism, and they believe him responsible for her death.

Blair has an unpleasant way of controlling the children. He carries a small green bottle which he says is full of poison, and when the children displease him, he threatens to drink from it, telling them that his death will be their doing.

The conclusions of some stories lose nothing through their inevitability.

Terse to the point of bleakness and very effective.

Express to Stamboul by Agatha Christie: One of Christie’s lesser-known detectives, Parker Pyne, investigates the suspicions of young Elsie Jefferies, who has unexpectedly uncovered a cryptic message written by her husband. What exactly could he have meant by the words “just before Venice” scribbled on a pad, and for whom did he intend the message.

Just before the Stamboul express gets to Venice, Parker Pyne and the young woman are alarmed when their carriage fills with smoke, and when it clears, the woman’s jewels have vanished.

Could the grim Slav lady be the thief, and if so, what connection could she have with Elsie’s husband? Unlike Miss Marple and Poirot, Pyne does not consider himself a detective; for as he says, “The human heart is my province.”

Slight stuff.

The Green Road to Quephanda by Ruth Rendell: The narrator had been living for some years in Highgate, only two minutes from the old station, but he’d not known of the existence of the disused railway line close by until his friend Arthur Kestrel told him of it.

Kestrel lives in a gothic house where Highgate and Crouch End merge and writes fantasy novels as “Blasie Fastnet”. The novels have some commercial success, but Kestrel has never gained the critical acclaim that he seeks; the critics seem to pointedly ignore his novels, and he’s gained a reputation as ‘a poor man’s Tolkien’.

Kestrel speaks of the disused track one night when his friends are complaining that there’s nowhere to go:

“A long green lane, he said, like a country lane, four and a half miles of it.” You could get onto it from any of the bridges. Or from the bottom of Arthur Kestrel’s garden.

They plan an outing to follow the road, but when the time comes, something is very badly wrong with Kestrel, so the trip is abandoned.

Later, the narrator finds himself following the green road alone, and an unexpected turn of the track takes him to a strange place. And a curious explanation of Arthur Kestrel’s inspiration is suggested.

This is not in fact a murder story. But it’s one you might want to read again.

I've not read Murder On The Railways, but I think the same can be said of a number of Peter's collections from the mid-eighties through to a return to vintage form with Mammoth Book Of Haunted House Stories. They all have something to recommend them, and his introductions and linking material are seldom dull (!), but the obvious filler to forgotten gem ratio was in decline. He'd also developed a tendency to recycle already over-anthologised stories under lesser known original titles to mislead the reader into thinking they were getting something new, and how many copies of Dracula's Guest do you need?

Mammoth Book Of Haunted House Stories is a return to his roots in that his life-long interest in ghosts, witchcraft and demonology was kick-started when he researched a series of articles for an Essex newspaper at the close of the 'fifties, later expanded into his first book, the endearingly sensationalist Devil Worship In Britain, still a personal all-time favourite.

It's a safe bet he had a number of projects on the go at the time of his death. Ted of the equally fondly remembered Fantasy Center once tipped me off that Peter was buying up all things Elliott O'Donnell, and John Pelan has message-boarded that he turned down a Haining-edited collection of Anthony M. Rud stories for Midnight House on the grounds that, well, it was a collection of Anthony M. Rud stories ("I opted to pass ... for reasons which ought to be apparent to anyone that has read Rud").

Anyway, back on topic. I'm well surprised he didn't work a macabre section into the mix, even if it meant re-sampling The Ghost Now Standing On Platform One & Co.