Edward Marston - The Excursion Train

An excursion train carries rowdy passengers to an illegal prize fight in Berkshire. As the crowd surges from the train, a murder victim is left behind. Inspector Robert Colbeck discovers that the dead man was a cobbler, living under an assumed name because he worked part-time as a public executioner. His work on the scaffold has made him countless enemies but a recent bungled execution in Kent gives Colbeck the break that he needs.

Based in Ashford, a railway town, Colbeck and his assistant, Sergeant Victor Leeming, have to solve the crime for which an innocent man was wrongly executed before they can catch the hangman's killer.