This series is so charming - lush book covers, London settings and the era of the 20s - all good in my mystery likes. Kate Shackleton never disappoints with her sleuthing but I do think I need to read more of the earlier books in this series becaus I sense I've missed some of her details in past books. This was a fun one that keeps the reader engaged on the train, in Scotland Yard, and about mining and farming in certain rural places. Interesting while fun to read!

The Body on the Train is the eleventh entry in the Kate Shackleton mystery series, I think. The books feature Kate who was widowed during WWI. She is bright, resourceful and looking for life to give her some meaning as the series begins. Of course, she is an old hand at solving mysteries by the time of this entry.

It is now 1929 as the story begins. A body is, as you know, found on a train. Who was murdered and why? Is the death related to the rhubarb shipment on the train? What will Kate discover as she seeks to solve this case?

With its recurring characters and good story lines the Kate Shackleton mysteries will be enjoyed by those who like the books by Anna Lee Huber and Jacqueline Winspear. The titles can be read out of order but once a reader tries one, they will most likely want to read others.

By the way, each title in this series has a gorgeous cover. The artwork always makes me want to pick up the book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own. I would also like to thank Crooked Lane Books for publishing so many series that began with other publishers. It is wonderful to still be able to find the titles.

I always look forward to a new Kate Shackleton book. Frances Brody has created a very likeable protagonist in Kate, and her plots mean that you are always entertained. Lovely setting too.

The Body on the Train is book eleven in the Kate Shackleton mystery series. Kate was a nurse during WWI and is a war widow. Her adopted father is a high ranking police officer in England and she has always been interested in puzzles, investigation and photography. After becoming involved in solving a murder, Kate decided to become a private investigator along with Mrs. Sugden and Mr. Sykes.

In this latest novel, Scotland Yard has asked Kate to secretly investigate who the body is that was found on a rhubarb train to London. Kate has ties to the area and won't be suspicious visiting. Finding out the man identity could be tricky and when they find another murder was committed in the area on the same night things could become dangerous! Good thing Kate has friends helping her!
Fans of Maisy Dobbs will also love Kate Shackleton mysteries.

THE BODY ON THE TRAIN by Frances Brody is another cozy mystery in the Kate Shackleton series, set in 1920's England. Shackleton, a private investigator, is chosen to help Scotland Yard identify a body found in a rhubarb shipment from Yorkshire. Seems implausible, but labor problems and other strife add a serious concern and another death to the story. Posing as an inquiring photographer, Shackleton visits a former school friend who is married to the local mine manager. There, she investigates several happenings, allowing the story to deal with class conflict and potential national security concerns. For a puzzling mystery with compelling historical insight, choose this or another title in Brody’s entertaining series.

I was fortunate to receive a proof copy of this from Net Galley in return for an unbiased review. I’d read one of the author’s books in this series before, albeit a long time ago - so I was happy to try another. The story took a little while to get going, but it was interesting and definitely got me hooked towards the end. Good to read a strong female character, and would recommend the series to other detective story fans.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45280716-the-body-on-the-train

I received and advance copy of this book through Net Galley and this is my honest review.

The Body on the Train by Frances Brody is the eleventh Kate Shackleton mystery. A man’s body is found in a sack in London 1929. Scotland Yard is out of ideas and accept help from Kate Shackleton, a local sleuth. I enjoyed this book. The characters were well developed with a good plot. I liked the historical era it was written about.


It is 1929 and a body has been found on the rhubarb train. There are so many factors that figure into the mystery including a children’s home, a mine, the Ryder Cup, rhubarb farmers and an interesting cast of detective helpers. I enjoyed the pace of the story. I was never quite sure just who to trust.

I would like to thank Net Galley for the opportunity to have read an advance copy of this book and I highly recommend this book.

Although I have seen several Frances Brody novels in shops, I had never read one. There was no particular reason for my omission, other than I already have several hundred books on my reading pile awaiting attention. I am now so delighted that I decided to read one of her Kate Shackleton books out of curiosity.

Although Brody is a contemporary author and the book was first published in 2019, The Body on the Train is set in 1929. Brody evokes the period well. I didn’t spot any anachronisms and I would have believed it was written in the 1930s.

Kate is a private investigator, whose father happens to be Chief Superintendent at Wakefield Police HQ. A body is found on a freight train from Yorkshire and Scotland Yard ask her to investigate the murder. Kate gets wind of another murder near Wakefield and concludes the two are related. She stays with a childhood friend, Gertrude, and her husband, Benji, near the scenes of the murders but comes to realise that Gertrude isn’t as likeable as Kate remembered her as a teenager.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The action is mostly in Yorkshire, topped and tailed by scene in London. Kate has assistants: Mrs Sugden, her housekeeper; Jim Sykes, an ex-policeman; and Philip Goodchild, a mechanic/driver. I have the impression that Philip is on the autistic spectrum and thought that Brody’s sympathetic treatment of him was brilliant: Kate chooses her words carefully to conform to Philip’s way of seeing the world. She doesn’t talk down to him; she treats him as a friend and equal; but she uses his choice of words rather than saying the same thing with different words. All the characters are believable and are delineated nicely.

Kate is in danger a couple of times – something I don’t recall ever happening to Miss Marple – but one of the occasions is unconvincing. Sykes ought to have been fired for his negligence!
Overall, very good indeed and I shall look for more Brodys to add to my reading pile.

#TheBodyOnTheTrain #NetGalley

Kate Shackleton has been commissioned to find out who murdered an unknown man on a rhubarb train in the Body on the Train. She stays with friends and starts unwinding the trail of death and misfeasance. Someone has mislaid orphans, an innocent man is suspected of murdering a local store owner. Times are hard in mining country; what part do the local gentry and mine owners have in the crimes? Why are the police unwilling to conduct real investigations? Complex plot in the wonderful cozy.

This is a lively read. It's a historical murder mystery story set in 1929 mostly at Yorkshire in the English countryside. It's an excellent story with a strong plot set against the background of the then prevailing social unrest and economic hardship. Britain is stuck in the lingering malaise and austerity of the post Great War period. Coalminers' strikes and railway strikes have caused havoc.
Private Detective Kate Shackleton is hired by Scotland Yard to investigate the discovery of an unidentified body on one of the trains carrying rhubarb from Yorkshire to London. The Yard insists that she carry out her assignment in secret because of a concern that it might be a Russian Bolshevik activist stirring up labour unrest and smuggling gold into the country to finance this activity. She therefore goes undercover as a photo journalist preparing a pictorial essay about life in Yorkshire. This allows her to roam the countryside and interview people about the body. She is helped by her former policeman assistant Sykes and Mrs. Sugden, her housekeeper, both of whom carry out their own individual inquiries on her behalf. This trio of sleuths unearth a nest of corruption, which strikes close to Kate: she is put into danger in an exciting conclusion to the whodunit story when the killer is revealed. There's sharp social commentary about the landed gentry. Some of its members are portrayed as smug, arrogant and entitled, as their economic fortunes decline.
This is the 11th book in a series but it can be read as a standalone. Readers new to the series may want to go back to some of the early books to catch up on Kate's backstory.
I received an eBook advance reader's copy from Crooked Lane Books via Netgalley and the
comments are my own.

I have been reading the Kate Shackleton mysteries from the first book of the series, and I have to say, this is either the best one I've ever read or at at least in the top three. Kate is contacted by Scotland Yard to discreetly investigate an unidentified man who was found murdered, clad only in his underwear and stuffed into potato sacks, on a shipment of rhubarb sent down from the area is around Thorpefield, a small village near where Kate grew up. She is told the man may have been a Russian fomenting unrest in the local cloth mills. In order to conduct a discreet investigation, she arranges to stay at the home of her best friend from riding school, Gertrude Brockman, who is now married to a well-to-do mine owner and country squire, in the guise of writing and photographing a story about the area and its interests for a magazine. Before she leaves for Thorpefield, she notes that a sweet shop owner in the village was killed at the same time as the unidentified man, and that her boarder was accused of the crime. Kate thinks it strange that two killings happened in the same tiny place and wonders why the second crime wasn't brought to her attention.

This is only the start of a fast-moving and complex mystery that will also involve Kate's investigative partner Jim Sikes, her landlady Mrs. Sugden, Kate's niece Harriet, and even their dog, and introduces a fascinating cast of characters, including Kate's old childhood companion "PH," Philip Goodchild (a young man who we might say today was autistic), the Brockmans and their enigmatic butler Raynor, and Milly the maid who loves the young man accused of murder the sweet shop owner, the mystery involving a golfing tournament, a young mechanic with a familiar face, a razed orphanage, an allotment with a strangely-dressed scarecrow, a new coal-pit being dug, and missing children. Almost every other chapter contained a new twist, and, although I figured out whodunit about 3/4 of the way through, I still raced through the book to find out if the guilty would be punished and how.

These are consistently great mysteries, but this one has pretty much topped all the rest in interesting characters and situations.

"The Body on the Train" by Frances Brody is the latest Kate Shackleton adventure, and a tangled web it is. Perhaps a little too tangled for some readers.

A dead man is found inside a train car at Knights Cross. No identification. There’s an interesting little prolog involving a Russian gentleman, so we already have a mystery. Being the inquiry agent that Kate is, Kate is asked to help, but her inclusion has to be very hush hush, as foreign parties may be involved. There’s also a chance that the dead man might have been trying to evoke another miner’s strike, since he was found in the neighborhood. That’s what the Yard thinks anyway. All sorts of possibilities are pondered. So, posing as a photographer; not a stretch for our Kate, she goes to stay with an old friend and begins nosing around.

How is a shopkeeper’s murder, the demolishing of a children’s home and the body in the train all connected? Boy howdy, you’re going to find out, in “The Body on the Train.” It’s all rather convoluted, so make sure you’re paying attention.

Along the way we get highlights of life in an English coal village -- the lifeblood of England, as it were -- with all its trouble and strife, a way of life beginning to come to an end with strikes and foreign competition and modernity rearing its head. The author paints an authoritative picture.

“Gain, greed, desperation,” as one of the characters relates. Even some chasing of shadows and false trails. All come together as Kate discovers and unravels this tale, not without personal danger. There’s some slow parts and some speedy parts, so be prepared. Frances Brody knows how to weave a compelling mystery, and her readers can count on that, in “The Body on the Train.”

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a copy of this book, in exchange for this review.

In 1929, Mrs. Shackleton is one of only two female private detectives in London when a Body on the Train is found murdered.

Mrs. Shackleton is called in by Scotland Yard to investigate a man found dead in a potato sack on a train. The man was only wearing underpants. He was accompanied in the sack by two potatoes and two English coins. The train was a regularly scheduled nightly rhubarb run from rural England to London. In a parallel case that occurred on the same night, Mrs. Shackleton agrees to help a young man who is accused of brutally murdering his landlady.

The author, Frances Brody, does a great job creating this historic mystery in the mode of Agatha Christie. The addition of a possible Russian spy angle adds authenticity to the 1920s plot. The denouement was unexpected but looking back I clearly see the clues laid out. Overall, the Body on the Train is an enjoyable neo-Golden-age mystery. 4 stars!

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

It's 1929 and Kate Shackleton has been asked by Scotland Yard to investigate a strange case. A special train has arrived from Yorkshire, delivering a spacial cargo for the London market - forced rhubarb. Turns out there is more than rhubarb on the train. When the unloading begins, a body is discovered stuffed into a bag like a load of spuds. Not a thing on the man to identify him and Scotland Yard is stumped. They are also worried that this corpse, having originated in Yorkshire, may be connected with the current unrest revolving around the strikes in the coal fields. As Kate knows the area and has the experience as a private detective, Scotland Yard hands over the file they have on the case. It isn't long before Kate is certain that they are holding back information that she needs. There is much more to this investigation and soon another murder occurs. The police are saying one thing but Kate is certain that the two cases are connected and, with the help of her partner, Sykes and her housekeeper, she goes undercover to sort it out. The list is long as there are as many as two hundred rhubarb growers who placed their produce on that train. Who is the one who ties them altogether? And what does she not know that she must figure out before she becomes the next victim?
This series continues to shine as historical mystery writing at its best. It's always a great puzzle with solid characters driving the plot. Kate is a wonderful main character, always up to the challenges her chosen profession throws at her. I had never heard of the rhubarb train and I enjoyed learning about it. A well written mystery that imparts a history lesson is not to be missed.
My thanks to the publisher Crooked Lane and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

An excellent, twisty, turny installment of this usually outstanding historical mystery series. Looking forward to the next one!

I do not know what is happening, but the last two books by Frances Brody were not to my taste. I found this last one totally confusing, boring, slow and with too many characters involved. I hope it is just my problem, that I read it in the wrong moment and the next one would be an installment that I will love like the first one.....

Non mi é chiaro cosa possa essere successo, ma gli ultimi due libri di Frances Brody non mi sono piaciuti per niente. Questo ultimo era estremamente confuso, noioso, lento e con talmente tanti personaggi che alla fine uno valeva l'altro...Spero solo che sia un problema momentaneo, dovuto al fatto che magari ho letto il libro nel momento sbagliato e il prossimo mi piaccia come ai vecchi tempi.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

In my mind, there is no better decade for mysteries than the 1920s and 1930s – where time is caught at the beginning of modernization and between two world wars. Where life was changing faster than anyone knew.

Thoughts:
In The Body on the Train, Kate Shackleton is brought in by Scotland Yard to assist on a case where a man’s body has been found on a train carrying the forced rhubarb to London. Through sleuthing they learn the town from where the body probably originated from and so Kate maneuvers her way into being invited to stay at Thorpefield Manor, the home of a friend of hers, where she stays with under the guise of working on a magazine commission that will allow her to explore, ask questions, and take lots of photographs. One thing the manor doesn’t lack is plenty of suspects, not to mention the nearby friends, who come by from time to time.

Although this is the 11th book in the series, this is my first Kate Shackleton book to read. Due to this I found the beginning of the story a little challenging to get into. I wasn’t familiar with any of the characters so there was a learning gap I had to overcome, but I also had to adjust to the short sentences as well as the manor in which Kate talks to herself, or to us. However, while her sardonic wit she used when making internal comments was difficult for me at first, I did grow to appreciate it and understand it as I continued through the story. In fact, as much as I struggled at the beginning of the story, there came a point I couldn’t put the book down. I became so invested in making sure the suspects were discovered and that justice was served that I knew I had to read it straight through.

In addition to the mystery, the book takes up subjects such as children who are orphans or were born from unwed parents and can’t keep them, work houses, mining and the changing energy industry, just to name a few. The varying characters that assist Kate all added nice textures and layers to the story that I found engaging. And as it stands I can’t decide if I liked Sykes or Mrs. Sugden more.

Overall, a nice mystery story and one I look forward to continuing to read. Thank goodness there are several books in this series.

Rating: 4 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the advanced reader copy and opportunity to provide an honest review.

I do not usually start a series with the most recent book instead of the oldest one, but I stumbled across The Body on the Train and it sounded right up my alley! I was right and I enjoyed it very much.

Historical mystery is one of my favourite genres and I particularly like an English 1920's setting. Kate Shackleton is a Private Detective who appears to have made quite a name for herself with the powers that be, and who is requested to help solve a crime the police cannot. She has a wide circle of friends and family who assist her and occasionally save her from a nasty end.

I enjoyed learning a little about rhubarb farming in the Leeds area and about the special trains which rushed the fresh rhubarb down to London to the markets. The mystery was intriguing and the detective work was smartly done.

So now I am determined to go in search of the first book and discover how Kate started out in her chosen field and why. Another good series for me to explore!

Who knew all this about rhubarb! When a body is found on the rhubarb train, Kate's asked to look into things because she knows the ground in Yorkshire, which was much more unsettled in 1929 than certainly I was aware. There are Bolsheviks afoot and there's unrest in the coal fields. Kate and her pals Mr Sykes and Mrs Sugden are on the case= and then another person is murdered. This is a low key mystery which more or less wanders to the solution. The nice part (besides the characters) are the interesting atmospherics. I've only read one of the preceding books so this was pretty much a standalone for me- and I was fine. Thanks to net galley for the ARC. For fans of period mysteries.

"Frances Brody's eleventh Kate Shackleton mystery is sure to delight readers of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear.

Two murders. A one-way ticket to trouble.

And it's up to Kate to derail the killer.

London, 1929. In the darkness before dawn, a railway porter, unloading a special train from Yorkshire, discovers a man's body, shot and placed in a sack. There are no means of identification to be found and as Scotland Yard hits a dead end, they call on the inimitable Kate Shackleton, a local sleuth, confident her local knowledge and investigative skills will produce results. But it's no easy task.

Suspicion of political intrigue and fears of unrest in the Yorkshire coalfields, impose secrecy on her already difficult task. The murder of a shopkeeper, around the same time, seems too much of a coincidence. The convicted felon was found with blood on his hands, but it's too tidy and Kate becomes convinced the police have the wrong man.

By then it's too late. Kate finds herself in a den of vipers. The real killer is still at large, and having tinkered with Kate's car, nearly causes her to crash. Not only that, but Scotland Yard has turned their back on her. As Kate edges toward the shocking truth, she's going to need all the strength and resourcefulness she can muster to uncover this sinister web of deceit."

For the Agatha Christie cozy fan in all of us.