Andy Ross and his team have an international investigation on their hands.As the late night train from Manchester to Liverpool approaches the city, it hits the body of a man. After the police look into the case, they learn that the man was a well-known movie director – of the adult variety.As Andy Ross and his team investigate the death, they find out that the man’s list of enemies is almost as … enemies is almost as long as the railway line from Manchester to Liverpool. Is his murder personal or professional?
With two disgruntled ex-wives – both with a motive for murder – thrown into the mix, Ross and his team attempt to solve the mystery of the Last Train to Lime Street.
This is a standalone novel, and can be enjoyed even if you haven’t read other books in the series.
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Murder express
Last Train to Lime Street is a twisted tale of murder that begins when a late night train mutilates a body that drops from a bridge onto the track. With no I.D. the body is not identified for a few days until a worried wife notifies the police of a missing husband. The man was Joey Slimani, an American adult movie producer.
As D.I. Ross and his team investigate, it appears that their are a plethora of suspects who could have wanted Joey dead, including two ex-wives and a Los Angeles pornographic film-maker with Mob connections.
Porter has produced a real teasing mystery and the Liverpool detectives, while seemingly stuck for clues, eventually grind out the solution with typical British doggedness. When the murderer is revealed it is something of a surprise, but isn’t that what you want from a great mystery? An excellent read, and a great addition to the Mersey Mystery series.
The critical elements of a feel-good mystery are all here yet again with Brian L. Porter’s latest offering, with believable and loveable characters, good plot and pacing, and plenty of twists and turns as a group of detectives struggle to solve the latest case.
This time, the team’s investigation of a gruesome murder opens into the seedy world of a porn movie director. Porter handles this theme with delicacy, while portraying the prejudices and bawdy humour that would typically arise behind the scenes at a police station. Setting the theme amidst ordinary suburban lives lends Last Train to Lime Street a flavour of social realism, and allows Porter to develop and deepen his cast of regular characters whilst voicing a range of perspectives on the topic.
Written in Porter’s upbeat, witty and British vernacular style, Last Train to Lime Street is a cracking read. Intriguing to the last.
If you were to look over my previously read book list, you’d notice ~75% are mysteries that are part of a book series. I enjoy getting to know a group of characters in a realistic setting who work together (or sometimes against) trying to discover what secrets led to a murder. Brian L. Porter’s ‘The Mersey Murder Mysteries’ series provides all that and more. I’d finished reading three of five previously written when his latest was released this month. Although I try to read in order, these can be read out of order as they’re stand-alone mysteries based on the fictional Merseyside Police Specialist Murder Investigation Team. If you read out of order, you might find someone married in a later book and single in an earlier book, but otherwise, it should be okay. Kudos to the author for building a great atmosphere and backdrop to tell his stories about the bizarre and nasty murders his special investigation team handles.
In Last Train to Lime Street, a train engineer making one of his final stops before retirement is navigating between stations when he sees something fall from a bridge. He tries to stop the train, but a collision is inevitable. He thought it was a body, but when he stumbles from the train car, it’s way more than he expected. Porter viscerally describes the impact of the train scattering body parts everywhere, and we soon realize, the body was naked and its severed head was actually cut prior to the collision. Who is the victim? When he’s got no identification and several parts are still missing, this won’t be an easy case. Enter detectives Izzie Drake and Andy Ross who quickly find a connection to a man recently reported as missing — an American transplant who runs a very successful adult entertainment company. Readers learn all about the porn industry through the victim’s business partners and three wives (1 current, 2 ex). Was he killed for something related to the mob-connected film company, a trick gone wrong, or some other more personal connection few knew anything about?
Our key detectives have to trace the path the victim took in the 2 days since leaving his wife and home for a business meeting. No one will admit to anything. Everyone says he was a good guy. Porter’s highly adept at creating a fine balance between educating readers on how the porn industry works versus what may or may not have contributed to the death. At times, the material can be a bit graphic, which for me was completely okay. It’s handled well, and it’s necessary to paint a full picture of the lifestyle and potential areas for clues. Not for the faint of heart, it delivers a powerful punch when you find out who the killer is and why (s)he felt the need to dispose of this well-known film star and business owner.
I’ve not read many UK police procedural series, but I love Agatha Christie’s books and the Midsomer Murders television show. I get the same traditional British feel in Porter’s books as I do from these other treats, but Porter’s are set in the early 2000s so they feel more current and urban. This is not your quaint little town that has a murder every so often. Drake and Ross handle only the intense! I love being able to get inside the head and actions of the entire team… we get the perspective from ~10 police members including a German transplant visiting for 2 years and those from other part of the UK who contribute to researching the case. Porter drops in a few wonderful personal stories for the primary detectives on the case so we know what’s going on in terms of marriages, children, relocation, and family death. It makes you feel like you’re reading about old friends when you stick with a series like this one.
I thoroughly enjoyed this latest edition and am looking forward to reading the earlier two I hadn’t gotten to yet. I have a goal: to be current before Porter releases book #7 in this series in early 2019. Why don’t you hurry up and read them so we can buddy read the next together?