Tammy’s Reviews > The Great Train Robbery > Status Update

Agar heard about the guy who got pushed off the train. Pierce must be the guy with the binoculars.

Pierce is the put-upper (the planner of the robbery). He’s looking for the screwsman (the guy who can make keys on the fly). Pierce keeps his cards close to his chest and they ease into the conversation with a lot of innuendo about the job. He never spills any details but Agar is interested. Neither has spent time in prison (supposedly). Agar explains his absences by travel (necessary to keep off police radar).

Ch. 3 The book is a historical novel. To have free reign, names are changed. It sticks to the facts mostly but there are variations. The names are changed but it’s easy to tell who is who. Since this is pure entertainment, I don’t care. We learn of a new character, Robert Agar, who worked at a matchstick factory as a child and has life-long lung issues as a result. He dipped matches which exposed him to phosphorous.

Ch. 2 Edward Pierce is the mastermind between the 1855 train robbery. It is hard for us to imagine but his identity is hard to nail down. Is he a young gentleman gone rogue? A young gentleman down on his luck? An imposter? Rumors say that he made money from croquet or other successful speculations. It could be that he built his skill as a petty thief and conman.

The young man tries to get up and fails. The situation is odd and mysterious to me because a half hour later, some rich guy shows up and uses binoculars to survey the scene from afar. He does not render help. He does not seem to care about the welfare of the young man. He watches long enough to ensure this guy is dead and then gets in his coach and heads to London on a road that is parallel to the railroad tracks.

The first railway line was open between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. It made the growth of cities possible. Part 1, Chapter 1 is short and mysterious. A young guy is trying to overpower the guard on a train. He comes close to winning, but the guard throws him off, and the young man rolls down the hill.

Much of what was said about the 1970s does not apply today. There were a lot of unsolved crimes. Technology has allowed us to solve many crimes, including cold case crimes. However, criminals have also gotten more sophisticated. Early humans could travel no more than four mph. A trotting horse brought it up to 10 mph. Trains raised it to between 40 and 70 mph. Trains were far more comfortable than coaches.

I need a fast, easy read, and this was on sale at Audible. The intro tells what Victorians believed about criminals as well as the ability to solve crimes. Dickens is one of the few authors who wrote about criminals in big cities. There was such a fast shift from rural life to overflowing cities that the criminal underclass was not on their radar. It talks about what people thought about crime in the 1970s.