BESTSELLING novelist Andrew Martin is well known to York readers who enjoy murky Edwardian murder mysteries – and not just because his Jim Springer novels are so well written.
Andrew grew up in York in the 1970s. His dad was a railwayman – so it’s no surprise that the York scenes in Andrew’s series of novels featuring York-based North Eastern Railway detective Jim are so vivid.
As you immerse yourself in novels like The Blackpool Highflyer and The Lost Luggage Porter, you can almost hear the clank and hiss of the great steam engines as they enter beneath the canopied arches of York’s railway station, and see the grime and soot on the station’s walls.
Andrew – now based in London – will be returning to York on September 11 for a date at Waterstones to talk about his latest book, The Night in Venice.
His new book, however, is a bit of a departure.
It’s not part of the Jim Stringer series – and Andrew has written it under the name AJ Martin rather than Andrew Martin.
Railways being in Andrew's blood, however, it does still feature a description of a long railway journey – from London to Venice.
The novel is set in September 1911. Monica, a 14-year-old orphan, sets out on a train journey to Venice with her guardian, the prim and correct Rose Driscoll.
“The Venice trip is a holiday, but the two do not get on,” Andrew says.
“Driscoll, who is also Monica’s personal tutor, is prim, correct, keen on maths. Monica is highly imaginative, and prone to outbursts of anger. She also suffers from a condition called Dream Reality Confusion.”
That, for those who don't know, is a condition in which the sufferer finds it difficult to tell whether an experience occurred during the waking state - or whether it was part of a dream. That confusion forms an essential part of the plot.
On the night of their arrival in Venice, the pair have a row in the palazzo they are renting.
“The following morning, Monica wakes unsure as to what happened in the night: did she only dream that she had gone into Driscoll’s bedroom and pushed her out of the tall windows into the canal below? Or did she really do it?” Andrew says.
“Unable to bear discovering the truth, she sneaks out of the palazzo to spend what turns out to be an eventful day in Venice.”
So The Night in Venice is a historical thriller with only one suspect, Andrew says: Monica. “It is also (I hope) darkly comic, atmospheric and dream-like.
“I have been to Venice many times. I was there during a break in lockdown, and I said to my wife, ‘I must come back here and research a historical novel’, but then another lockdown intervened, and in the event I wrote the novel from history books and memories of Venice.”
He also read other novels set in Venice, like The Haunted Hotel, by Wilkie Collins, and Those Who Walk Away, by Patricia Highsmith.
“One reviewer of The Night in Venice said there were ‘echoes of Ripley’ (Highsmith’s most famous character) and that pleased me, because Highsmith is my favourite crime writer!” he said.
Andrew Martin will be at York Waterstones at 7pm on September 11 to talk about The Night In Venice. Tickets available at www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-a-j-martin/york
Andrew also writes regularly about the railways in his weekly Substack ‘Reading on Trains’, in which York regularly features. Visit readingontrains.substack.com
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