The Moquette Mystery

A young Northern woman called May is working in the fabrics department of a grand London department store when a detective comes in, clutching a scrap of fabric. Any idea what this is . . ? May’s superiors aren’t interested, so she takes the piece of oddly carpet-like cloth – patterned in pretty yellows, purples and blues – and gets rid of the officer by offering to find out.

It turns out to be a piece of railway moquette – but from which line, since no-one appears to have seen this striking pattern before - and how does it solve a murder? May’s investigations take her out into Metroland, up to the textile mills of Halifax, and finally to the Isle of Wight. Can this plucky young woman solve the Moquette Mystery?

Seats of London – a left-field guide to the colourful array of patterns adorning London’s Tube train, bus and train seats since the Thirties – has become an unlikely bestseller, and is already in its sixth printing. The Moquette Mystery is a kind of sequel , as well as a quirky and unique crime novel in its own right.