Derby Day at Epsom Downs. A multitude of people crowd to watch the races: dukes and dustmen, bishops and beggars, privileged ladies and prostitutes--the gamut of Victorian society and a hotbed for crime and crooks of all kinds. With the nation a-flutter in the run up to this national event, a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train at Crewe; the first in a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud and race-fixing. Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant are assigned to the case and are soon snarled up in a web of skullduggery stretching across the country....

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1858. The driver and fireman of a goods train are speeding along near the Scottish border. As they take a sharp bend, they can see that the track ahead has been ripped up. With no time to break, there s no way to avert disaster. Before they know what s happening, the engine has veered off the rails and plunged into the lake below, taking the wagons and men with it. Summoned north by the Caledonian Railway Company, Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming learn that the sabotage might be the work of a rival company. But as they proceed, a larger conspiracy seems to be afoot. The target: the...

In this thrilling selection of short stories, a young porter is found dead in a coal tub, Colbeck devises a trap to catch a thief, and a burnt train carriage holds a gruesome secret in a small coastal village.

As Colbeck and his trusty aide, Sergeant Victor Leeming, begin to piece together clues and motives for each crime, it becomes clear the pair must stay a step ahead of the culprits to solve the cases. With a new suspect at every turn, can the duo unearth the villains?

In this installment of this dramatic Elizabethan series, Westfield s Men are flying high after a celebrated performance of The Insatiate Duke at the Queen s Head. However, victory is bittersweet as the company is soon faced with dissolution and the loss of their theatre; were it not for one of the company s rising stars. After acquiring a new benefactor, the company plan to build their own theatre. However, before they have the chance to find out who this guardian angel is, one of the group is found brutally murdered. Cue Nicholas Bracewell to uncover not one, but two hidden identities, of...

Faced with the austerities of a bitterly cold English winter, the theatre is deserted and Westfield s Men find themselves out of work. Fortuitously, the company is invited to perform at a country home in Essex; welcome news to the disgruntled players. The company decides it s the perfect opportunity to trial their new play The Witch of Colchester. However, when the group s leading actor begins to fall mysteriously ill, the company fear witchcraft might be involved. Then on the performance night, an audience member inexplicably collapses and dies, paving the way for Nicholas Bracewell to...

Theatre troupe Westfield s Men take on a new actor, Francis Quilter, after reaching new heights of success. But with the new member, brings new trouble. Quilter s father, Gerard, is on trial for the murder of an enemy, but he denies the charge and Nicholas Bracewell sets about proving his innocence. However, Bracewell s loyalty to Francis drives a wedge between the players. Who will clear the Quilter family name? On their quest for the truth, they stumble across an unlikely ally, who may just hold the answers they re looking for."

1859. St Mary's Church, Spondon. A little girl playing hide-and-seek jumps into a freshly-dug grave to find a dead man already occupying it. It is the body of Cedric Norton, a senior director of the Midland Railway. Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming travel to Derbyshire to investigate.

London, Autumn 1916. When he slips out of a house in the early hours of the morning, Simon Wilder is too preoccupied to realize that he is being stalked. As he walks along the street, lights begin to dim as a warning that there's another Zeppelin attack. Guns begin to pound away as British airplanes attack the Zeppelin. Suddenly, it bursts into flame and lights up the whole sky. The crowds cheer as the great fireball drops slowly down and crashes in a field but the one person unable to watch is Simon Wilder. While he is staring up at the sky, he is stabbed to death and left in an alleyway. It...

1860, Wimborne, Dorset. Rebecca Tullidge, miserably married to her callous husband, finds some escape through a love affair with another man. After putting her drunk husband to bed one Saturday night, she sneaks from their lodge to meet railway officer, John Bedloe. But much to her horror, she trips over her lover's corpse on the railway tracks. The railway director calls Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming in from London to solve the hideous crime. As the pair arrives in the countryside, they find there is no shortage of difficult personalities and conflicting alibis, making the mystery...