GENRE: Murder Mystery, Humour, Whodunit, plus a smidgeon of sci-fi.
The Mary Celeste Papers
By Paul Gallimore
Now available on Kindle and in Paperback
Current Amazon Kindle rating out of 5 is :
Murder, mass media, mayhem and mirth! And all because Billy Gaines happened across an old ship’s log.
Original Kindle Cover - Now updated
Vincent thinks that he has solved two of the world’s great maritime mysteries at a stroke.The CIA wants to shred the evidence, the Mob wants a share of the action, Francine wants justice, Billy wants equilibrium and Gapeela wants 15 percent. Dave is happy just to torture himself.
Paul Gallimore’s first novel is a hugely original fusion of ideas, where raw humour transmutes into whodunit, and science fiction blurs with cold fact. Did the US Navy really conduct a top secret experiment into invisibility in 1943? Just what did happen to the Mary Celeste? And will the truth finally lie somewhere in the ocean between Fulham and Philadelphia?
The Mary Celeste Papers – A Railwayman’s Tale is a nostalgic and hilarious homage to Britain’s dysfunctional, nationalised railway of the 1970’s, seen through the teenaged eyes of the author; a British Railways apprentice at the time.
It is tempting to compare this work to that of other British humour writers, such as Tom Sharpe, or Terry Pratchett, but The Mary Celeste Papers stands apart due to its often grimy slices of reality.
This book book is a unique combination of laugh-out-loud comedy, whodunit, science fiction, social commentary and autobiography. It entertains royally on all levels.Well written, thought provoking and filled to the brim with fully-formed, larger than life characters, this book demands to be read. Give it a try, you will not be disappointed.
Paperback Cover
This book is wonderful. I loved the characters, the settings and the plot. I laughed out loud a lot, which is rare for me. I don’t remember how I came to find the book but am so glad I did. There are typos galore, grammatical errors and stray apostrophes (Authors note: Whoops! All fixed now) , but for the first time in my life It Did Not Matter! Please do read it. ”
Mr Gallimore has researched his subject thoroughly, giving an interesting and quirky solution to one of life’s great mysteries, writing with affection, insight and wit. I particularly enjoyed the behind the scenes look at life in the areas the public don’t see in one of London’s major railway stations.
I do hope he continues to produce books like this – a very welcome addition to the mystery oeuvre. ”
Way back in the day I did an apprenticeship on the railway in England. In the 1970′s apprenticeships were what was expected of young lads who left school without blazing a trail academically. I was employed by British Rail’s London Midland Region and got to travel from depot to depot from London up to Rugby; working on diesel and electric locomotives, plant and machinery, platform tractors and finally carriages; each for a few months at a time.
The two Carriage and Wagon depots that I worked at were the dullest places imaginable, the time between jobs could stretch out for ever, depending on breakdowns, and the daily distractions were thin on the ground. The staff members were good people, but plenty of them were less than motivated, often missing in action, and a fair number of them were routinely drunk on duty. Working with somebody who urinates in his boiler suit and only washes and changes his clothes every couple of weeks is not as glamorous as it sounds.
And yet when I was given the choice of where I wanted to work after my apprenticeship was over I selected a Carriage and Wagon shed in London. Why? The answer is somewhat lost in the sands of time, but I think it was because it wasn’t too far from where I lived and because my best mate, Suss, was hell bent on going there. So, I went to the Wayside Shed with him and I fixed air conditioning systems and the like and I killed the time between chores by arguing aimlessly with him, playing silly games, sleeping on the coaches and sunbathing in Regents Park. The summer of ’76 was a hot one.
The Wayside Shed was not a place a young person could work for very long, not if they had a spark of life, but at the same time things did happen in the shed and trains by their very nature are a touch larger than life. Each day we watched the Railway’s institutionalised cast of characters and were amazed by their competence and their incompetence and their assiduousness and their shenanigans by turns. A constant refrain from Suss throughout our time there was, ‘You could write a book about this place’. The Mary Celeste Papers – A Railwayman’s Tale is that book.
