An Expert in Murder (Josephine Tey)

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It was hardly the sort of thing that Josephine would ever wear herself, and it made her own plain velvet seem bland in comparison, but she admired its delicate beauty nonetheless. In fact, although this was the day of the first murder, nothing would disturb her peace of mind until the following morning. Read, enjoy, comment, and make links but don’t post or publish this material elsewhere without my permission. This novel takes mystery author, Josephine Tey, and puts her centre stage in a real life crime novel. No classic detective fiction aficionado will want to miss Upson’s compelling sequel to 2008’s An Expert in Murder, which introduced mystery author Josephine Tey (1896–1952) as sleuth.

She had had thirteen months and four hundred and sixty performances to get used to being the author of the most popular play in London, but fame still tasted strange to her. I could wish the series were simply based around him – though that might wind up being more Roderick Alleyn than Alan Grant.Engines with snow ploughs attached had been sent to force a passage through, and she would never forget the sight of them charging the drifts at full speed, shooting huge blocks of snow forty feet into the air. And she meets Lydia, and obtains autographs, and then realizes she’s left baggage on the train and goes back in – where, a little while later, she is found dead. Had she been superstitious, Josephine Tey might have realised the odds were against her when she found that her train, the early-morning express from the Highlands, was running an hour and a half late. No matter how entertaining it is for the audience, it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday if you work there–he must be very keen on you to go at all. Clues and circumstance suggest that Tey may have been the intended target, so the narrative follows her and her time at the theatre.

An Expert in Murder begins a projected series featuring Tey and Penrose, which hints that Faber see Upson as one of the potential eventual successors to James, the genius of their crime list. The climax of the story was melodramatic, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing it’s not a very good thing here.

But during the miles in between, for a few precious hours, she could still remember how it had felt to be seventeen and sure of what you wanted. A sizeable crowd had gathered at the head of Platform Eight, obscuring his view of the train in which the girl’s body had been discovered less than an hour ago by a young railway employee. The cast of the play was created for this book; the reality of John Gielgud and (I believe) Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies is very interestingly turned into John Terry and Lydia Beaumont. I found it substantial, like a five course meal, appetizers,soup, salad, entree and dessert, the story delivered to the table and absorbed by the reader, bite by bite, detail by detail, carried by the characters, themselves highly believable and compelling. He suddenly had an image of his down-to-earth sergeant rushing home from the Yard every night to devour the latest thriller by his fireside.

I don’t know anyone else who could spend a day with all that enthusiasm and still look sane at the end of it. By the time she had drained three cups of bland coffee, the train appeared to be ready for its journey. Oh, and the friends meeting Tey at the train are also involved in the play and are relatives of the detective.

North London was the city at its most forbidding and, despite the widening of the streets, its most claustrophobic. The man investigating the death is Detective Inspector Archie Penrose and he's convinced that the murder is connected to Richard of Bordeaux and also that Josephine Tey's life is in danger. I think my problem was that it was too dark for my crime taste, I prefer cosy crimes (it´s my escapist genre). The book was dramatised in ten parts by Robin Brooks for BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour Drama, [5] starring Meg Fraser. About most of them I don’t remember enough details to comment except for Daughter of Time, which I recommend.

I figured that one out fairly easily – but it was annoying to have so much information withheld, sometimes for no very good reason. How England’s cities were changing, Josephine thought, looking out at the small, modern houses and giant cinemas which seemed to have sprung up everywhere. I would echo the above recommendation of Daughter of Time and another good starting place might be Miss Pym Disposes or The Franchise Affair. Josephine is also contradictory in some aspects - for example, we are told she is retiring and likes peace and quiet, but in London she chooses to stay with the noisiest, most flamboyant characters in the book. The Burgundy would go well with your lunch, so let’s both have that,’ she said and watched, amused, as the waiter unfolded Elspeth’s napkin and slid a silver vase of flowers closer to her with another wink that brought a flush to her cheeks.I also couldn’t quite work out why everyone seemed to know Tey, and not because of her fame, in fact everyone seemed to be very chummy with Penrose too. I liked it, will give the second one a whirl I think dependent on how that one I might carry on with the series or maybe not… we will see. They couldn’t have read the book, she thought, since she had tried it herself and considered Mr Munt to have carried on for far too long to be worth seven and six of anybody’s money. There, a pair of dolls–one male and one female–had been carefully arranged on the seat like actors on a stage. Having read the second in the series first, I was happy to learn that it didn't really affect my enjoyment of this one.