Brian Martin

On the cowboy’s trail: Powder Smoke, by Andrew Martin, reviewed

Jim Stringer, the railway policeman, is back, scouring Yorkshire in 1925 for a fairground sharpshooter suspected of two murders

Andrew Martin. Credit: Alamy 
issue 23 January 2021

Detective Inspector Jim Stringer is back. This is a York novel, or rather a Yorkshire crime novel. The LNER railway policeman investigates a supposed double murder, tracing a young fairground sharpshooter, Kid Durrant, through the Yorkshire countryside. The action takes place over five days in early December 1925, but is interspersed with flashbacks to the previous summer.

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