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Home / Authors / Edward Marston

Author

Edward Marston

Edward Marston is the principal pen name of Welsh author Keith Miles, a prolific writer best known for historical crime fiction. He studied Modern History at Oxford and lectured in the subject before becoming a full-time writer, initially producing plays for radio, television and the theatre. His first historical mystery, The Queen’s Head, appeared in 1988 and introduced Nicholas Bracewell, the resourceful stage manager of an Elizabethan acting company. Marston has also published fiction under names including David Garland and Martin Inigo, but the Edward Marston name has become closely associated with carefully researched mysteries set across many periods of British and European history.

Marston’s numerous series range from the Norman Conquest to the First World War. The Domesday novels follow royal commissioners Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret as they investigate crimes discovered during the compilation of the Domesday Book, while the Railway Detective mysteries feature Inspector Robert Colbeck amid the expansion of Victorian rail travel. The Captain Daniel Rawson series is set during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Bow Street Rivals books explore Regency London, and the Home Front Detective series follows Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy during the First World War. Through these novels, Marston combines conventional detective plots with period institutions, transport, warfare and social change, making him one of the most extensive modern writers of British historical mysteries.

Periods and events

Victorian Railway Expansion, 1851–1867 World War I Air War British Home Front during World War I Edwardian Ocean Liner Travel, 1907–1910 Late Georgian Reform Era Georgian Crime and the Bloody Code Domesday Survey, 1086 Battle of the Somme Elizabethan Travelling Players and Theatre Restoration London War of the Spanish Succession Great Fire of London Roaring Twenties Great Depression

Series

Series by Edward Marston (9 series)

Railway Detective in Order

by Edward Marston 24 books 4.3

The Railway Detective series follows Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and Sergeant Victor Leeming from 1851 through the expanding railway network of Victorian Britain. Colbeck, a former barrister with a deep interest in locomotives and engineering, investigates robberies, derailments, disappearances and murders whose methods depend on timetables, stations and…

Home Front Detective in Order

by Edward Marston 11 books 4.3

The Home Front Detective series follows Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy through wartime London from 1915 to 1918. Their cases arise from anti-German violence, conscription, munitions work, air raids, espionage fears and the pressures placed on a depleted police force while much of the country’s…

Ocean Liner Mysteries in Order

by Edward Marston 8 books 4.5

The Ocean Liner Mysteries follow ship detectives George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield on real passenger liners between 1907 and 1910. Working discreetly among wealthy travellers, emigrants, crew members and habitual thieves, they investigate crimes aboard vessels including Lusitania, Mauretania, Caronia, Oceanic and Celtic. Each voyage creates a closed…

The Bow Street Rivals in Order

by Edward Marston 5 books 4.3

The Bow Street Rivals follow identical twins Peter and Paul Skillen, private investigators operating in London in 1817. Their work often places them at odds with the official Bow Street Runners, whose authority and methods do not prevent the brothers from pursuing escaped prisoners, political assassins, blackmailers and…

Domesday in Order

by Edward Marston 11 books 4.3

The Domesday mysteries are set in 1086, when William the Conqueror’s commissioners travel through England to investigate disputed landholding and verify evidence gathered for the royal survey. Norman soldier Ralph Delchard and lawyer Gervase Bret form the central partnership, assisted by the clerks, officials and local witnesses needed…

Nicholas Bracewell in Order

by Edward Marston 16 books 4.1

The Nicholas Bracewell mysteries centre on Westfield’s Men, a fictional Elizabethan theatre company managed behind the scenes by its resourceful bookholder. Bracewell protects scripts, organises tours, settles disputes and solves murders that threaten the players, their patrons and the precarious business of performance. The sixteen novels move through…

Restoration in Order

by Edward Marston 6 books 4.1

The Restoration mysteries bring together architect Christopher Redmayne and Puritan constable Jonathan Bale in London after the Great Fire of 1666. Redmayne is connected to courtly and theatrical society, while Bale views the same city through parish duty and religious suspicion; their contrasting perspectives make them effective but…

Captain Rawson in Order

by Edward Marston 5 books 3.9

The Captain Rawson novels follow Daniel Rawson, a multilingual soldier, spy and confidential agent serving John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, during the War of the Spanish Succession. From Blenheim and Oudenarde to the siege of Lille and the battlefield of Malplaquet, Rawson moves between open combat and missions…

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