I was nearly devastated. At first I could not see another Jim Stringer book to read. However a new one was published last year. I love these books. This one was not quite so grim as the last two, but very topical with Isis pushing close to Baghdad and bringing the disastrous state of affairs back to our news reporting, which it should never have left. ( )

I was nearly devastated. At first I could not see another Jim Stringer book to read. However a new one was published last year. I love these books. This one was not quite so grim as the last two, but very topical with Isis pushing close to Baghdad and bringing the disastrous state of affairs back to our news reporting, which it should never have left. ( )

While i enjoyed this book more than Somme Stations, I still find it really hard to get into this series. Mostly, like Somme Stations, it just seemed flat. Even the rare passages of action seem stilted. Maybe this is intentional by the author, perhaps he's trying to convey the renowned British stiff upper lip attitude of the participants, however the fact that no-one ever seems to get startled or hot under the collar can really start to grate after a while. Perhaps he was trying to convey the ennui of life in the heat of the Middle East, certainly the enervating climate gets mentioned at least once on every page, but then the same flatness and lack of effort was apparent in the Somme Stations and I dont think heat was ever a problem there. This book gets extra marks for covering the British campaign in Mesopotamia, which generally gets short shrift compared to the Western Front, and conveys the terrain and general feel of the region quite well. But frankly as far as the story goes, its a bit of a bore. ( )

Most historical crime fiction related to World War One focusses on the Western Front so it is refreshing to find one that has a different setting. Captain Jim Stringer's introduction to Mesopotamia is a talk at the Victoria Street London Railway Club on the Berlin-Bagdad Railway. The railway had been a German scheme to connect with Asia Minor. Control of the railway becomes important to the British after they take Baghdad because it has the potential to give access to the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf. Turkey and Germany have collaborated in building the Berlin-Bagdad railway, a narrow two foot gauge, since 1888. Control of the railway would give Germany the ability to bypass the Suez Canal. Currently the railway is incomplete by about two hundred and fifty miles.

So control of the railway, and particularly over its completion, is particularly important to the British war effort and seems to be within their grasp. But there appears to be a traitor in the ranks who is collaborating with the Turks.

So Jim Stringer receives an assignment to Baghdad to see if he can discover whether the rumours are true. But when he gets there it turns into a murder investigation, which is right up his alley, because in civilian life he has been a detective associated with British railways in York and London. He can also drive steam trains.

I must confess that I read this book by mistake - thinking in fact that it was part of an entirely different series by an entirely different author.

There is an impressive amount of historical detail in this novel, and indeed the author says that his "description of the British occupation of Baghdad is roughly accurate". I think however that I would have benefited by getting to know Jim Stringer better through reading earlier titles (see the list below). ( )