Glad you liked the Bookman series. Overwhelmingly bookish. Virtually every major character from Victorian fiction you can think of finds his or her way in there somewhere. Particularly fond of Ms Adler and the delightfully eccentric Havisham. And just who is Smith based on?
Know what you mean about having to Google Street View stuff in B&M. I know some of them from personal experience of London. The underground stuff at Smithfield is intriguing. Used to park in the great subterranean spiral entrance when working at the Mirror. Weirdly old. Also, can’t remember if he has used the Necropolis Railway. This is also a fascinating thing with its original entrance, complete with Necropolis stone lettering, under a Waterloo railway bridge. At least it was there a few years ago. Might be “redeveloped” now, sadly.
Still yomping through the Beaufort Scales series and enjoying enormously. ?