Review: The Playboy of the Western Railway, by Malcom Wheatham (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Review: The Playboy of the Western Railway, by Malcom Wheatham

4:31pm Thursday 28th July 2011 in Book reviews By Allan Tunningley

THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN RAILWAY, Malcolm Wheatman, £9.99

KENDAL writer Malcolm Wheatman’s humorous novel shunts nicely along like the train that links the two fictional south-west Ireland communities he has created.

His comical characters are led by Samuel Donnelly, whose two ambitions — to create the aforementioned rail link and marry the local librarian — are pursued with singleminded determination.

However, the track to true love never runs smooth and Donnelly finds himself encountering potentially disastrous pitfalls.

Rib tickling and eminently readable, if rather on the long side at 460 pages.