Flying Scotsman

It is the spring of 1923 and the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple is on her way to a stately home in Scotland to research her next article for Town and Country. On board the Flying Scotsman, the famous London-to-Edinburgh train, Daisy meets an old schoolfellow, Anne Breton. Anne, along with all of her relatives, is en route to visit the deathbed of the family scion and notorious miser, Alistair McGowan. As it currently stands, Alistair's will leaves the entire family fortune to his brother Albert, and the rest of the family is rushing to his side, each hoping to convince him to change his will in their favor. Daisy, meanwhile, has her hands full taking care of Detective Inspector Alec Fletcher's young daughter Belinda, who ran away from home and stowed away aboard the train. She barely has time to take notice of the intricate family feud taking place all around her - that is, until Albert McGowan is found murdered on the train and Daisy is surrounded by an entire family of suspects. Think of the Golden Age of Steam and one train leaps to mind above all others: the Flying Scotsman, Nigel Gresley's elegant masterpiece of a locomotive, which broke the world speed record in 1934 and has enthralled millions with her beauty and power. And, uniquely, her postwar career has been even more varied and exciting than her early triumphs. Now Andrew Roden tells the Scotsman's remarkable story, from her construction and the glory days between the wars through the decline of steam and her rollercoaster fortunes in the subsequent years: nearly abandoned on a tour of the United States after the money ran out, crossing the Australian interior, put up for sale yet again when the company that owned her went bankrupt in 2003. A massive public campaign saved her for the nation, and she is currently being restored at the National Railway Museum, due to steam again in 2008. Now, with the aid of numerous interviews with those involved with the Scotsman over the years, Roden brings...