A few days back I mentioned a book I was reading that was so languid that I had trouble staying with it. The Edge, I shall now reveal, is that book.

Train stories are an interesting genre. In books and movies, a railroad train can provide the stage for high drama—derailments, dynamiting, bridge collapses, mysterious strangers all packed into a limited space, engines racing against the clock.

In real life, most rail journeys are pretty dull. Aside from enjoying the scenery—which depends heavily on where you’re traveling—the passenger has to pretty much bring, or make, his own entertainment. It’s nice not to have to drive, but driving at least gives you something to occupy your mind.

Sadly, The Edge is more like a real train journey than a movie one. Great stretches of prose pass by the coach window, all of it moving the story forward, but at a glacial pace. The climax, like the distant Rockies, looms forever (it seems) in the distance. Points of interest are far between.

The hero is Tor Kelsey, a special agent for the British Jockey Club. Independently wealthy, he could afford to live a life of leisure, but he was raised to do useful things and keep busy. In his professional capacity he’s developed a facility for being overlooked, for fading into crowds in order to observe unobserved.

As the book opens, he’s trailing a suspect, a man who probably murdered a jockey on the orders of a shady horse owner named Filmer, who recently got off on a charge of blackmail. The strong arm man, unfortunately, drops dead of a heart attack, leaving Kelsey without a good line on Filmer.

Then word comes that Filmer plans to join a much-publicized race event in Canada. Called the Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train, the exclusive excursion will send major race horse owners from Montreal to Vancouver, in a special luxury train featuring, for their added pleasure, a scripted mystery play. It appears that one or two of the travelers are about to be further victims of Filmer’s schemes, so Kelsey is delegated to join the crew as a waiter and actor, while keeping an eye on Filmer.

Which he does. Unfortunately, Filmer does almost nothing except ingratiate himself with the other owners for most of the book, which dampens the excitement. There’s finally some real action when they get to the Rockies, but even that seems to me underdeveloped, considering the possibilities. Many characters (I had a hard time keeping track of them) interact, mostly without a lot of drama.

Francis is a genial author, and Tor Kelsey an appealing character. But I found myself wondering, for many, many pages, why I should care what happened next.

I’d been looking for the late Stephen J. Cannell’s The Viking Funeral: A Shane Scully Novel for some time, just because of its title. I’ve enjoyed the other books in the Shane Scully series, and had kept my eye out for it, but the second-hand bookstore where I get most of my books never seemed to have it in.

Having finally found it, I have to confess to a little disappointment. It’s a diverting actioner, and moving in places, but it’s by far the darkest book of the series. I wasn’t prepared for the grimness of the thing.

In this book, our hero Shane Scully spots an old friend driving on the freeway, a friend who—he had every reason to believe—had committed suicide some time before. The friend’s response to catching his eye confirms the identification. His investigation of the matter leads Scully into very deep corruption in the police and sheriff’s departments, and to some terrible moments of betrayal, given and received. Scully spends a good portion of the book grieving his own killing of someone very important in his life.

It’s kind of depressing.

It gets better after a while, but the fun level in this one is pretty low, despite Cannell’s penchant for injecting cinematic violence, explosions, and automatic weapons fire at every opportunity. Worth reading, but not as light as one might hope. Cautions, as usual, for language, violence, and adult subject matter.