An Expert in Murder (Josephine Tey)

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Her death, in February 1952, could hardly have been better timed for such a shy and private person, a week after the demise of King George VI. “It was typical of her that she could slip out of her lives, and her own, at a moment when her passing was hardly noticed by the general public,” Ramsden wrote. “The whole nation was much too busy mourning its king to pay much attention to the deaths of any of his subjects.” John Gielgud read the news in his evening paper after coming offstage in a production of The Winter’s Tale. He hadn’t even known that she was ill. And lastly, I felt we didn't have any of Phryne Fisher's sassy and sexiness of being a bit younger, or Miss Marple's playing everyone to think she's a dear little old lady-ness. Josephine was just a bit middling. No wonder Josephine Tey never belonged to the Detection Club. During her career as a crime novelist—from The Man in the Queue (1929) to The Singing Sands (published posthumously in 1952)—she broke almost all the commandments. As if willfully guying Monsignor Knox, the main character in her novel Brat Farrar (1949) was an impostor posing as a missing twin to grab an inheritance. One of my favorite parts of the mystery was the setting. Upson places all the action in the West End theaters of the early '30s, where Tey would have been during her playwright years, and the variety of theatrical denizens pushed it right into "this is a keeper" series for me. Mix a little Hollywood or theater in my mysteries and I'm a happy reader!

Nicola Upson took what research she could get and jumped on the idea of making this mystery woman the star of a semi-biographical murder mystery. (The murder is no biographical...I think.) For me this worked really well. It had biographical fact mixed with imagined scenes, but because we know so little about Tey, these elements change over seamlessly in Upson recreation of the 1930s London West End theatre-land, which happens to be one of my favourite places, too. Upon arriving in London, the pair separate, as Elspeth has left her bag on the train. Soon after, the girl is found dead, apparently having been stabbed with a hat pin, a crime which seems to have been carefully planned. Here enters Detective Inspector Archie Penrose, an old acquaintance of Tey's, the best friend of her lover, whom Penrose saw die at the Somme. As usual, I'm a "Johnny come lately" to another well-written mystery series. This time a dashing but slightly damaged WWI veteran turned detective joins with real-life author Josephine Tey, to solve classic "who dunnits" with a twist. Overall, I found An Expert in Murder a fascinating and rewarding read. I'm deducting half a star on the basis that I found one of the motives given (Marta's rationale for wanting Josephine killed) fairly unconvincing, in the light of surrounding circumstances. I look forward to catching up on the remainder of the series, and in particular I'm eagerly anticipating the release of book #10, Dear Little Corpses in May 2022.Tey herself had no desire to be “kept.” Few photographs of her exist, and by dividing her life into discrete spheres she ensured that no one could know her too intimately. (One need hardly add that she never married.) To date, more than 60 years after her death—uniquely among the queens of the golden age—there is no biography (although one is due out in the fall). Oh, and her name wasn’t Josephine Tey. Her literary friends called her Gordon, but that wasn’t her name, either. I have now read up on Tey who is an interesting character but as a book character, I’m not sure. It’s also perfectly obvious that one of the supporting characters was John Geilguld and, again, this makes me a little uncomfortable. It almost feels like I just read unapproved real life fanfic. which seems to have been carefully planned. Here enters Detective Inspector Archie Penrose, an old acquaintance of Tey's, the best friend of her lover, whom Penrose saw die at the Somme. This is an involved plot, which, as so many Golden Age mysteries really do, has its roots in the First World War. The shadow of this conflict lays over the whole novel and adds a darkness to the storyline. I listened to this on audio and Sandra Duncan read this very well. It was an enjoyable book, despite my issues with it. If you enjoy this novel, you might also like, “A Talent for Murder,” by Andrew Wilson, which features Agatha Christie in a fictional setting. I am a camera” might have been Josephine Tey’s motto. “Oh, for one of those spy cameras that one wears as a tie pin!” she wrote in a letter to her friend Caroline Ramsden, a sculptor and racehorse owner, according to Ramsden’s memoir, A View from Primrose Hill. “When I was in town this last time I thought that, apart from a well-fitting new suit, there was nothing in the world that I wanted. And then I thought that yes, there was. I wanted a camera that looked like a handbag, or a compact, or something. So that one could photograph a person standing two feet away and be looking in another direction altogether while one was doing it.... I am always seeing faces that I want to ‘keep.’ ”

The novel is set in the London theatres of the 1930s. The book revolves around Josephine Tey, a version of the famous novelist. The story begins with Tey taking the train from Scotland The morbidity of that postwar world is something about which PD James has written in non-fiction; and she, perhaps rather more than Tey, seems to have been the main literary inspiration for Upson. DI Penrose, a death-haunted bachelor who asks penetrating questions in a gentle voice, feels like a relative of Adam Dalgliesh; like James, Upson likes to provide an elegant inventory of the architectural and interior design features of the story's locations. A young seamstress—an ex-convict determined to reform—has been found brutally slain in the studio of Tey’s friends, the Motley sisters, amid preparations for a star-studded charity gala. Despite initial appearances, Inspector Archie Penrose is not convinced this murder is the result of a long-standing domestic feud—and a horrific accident involving a second young woman soon after supports his convictions. I took the book on face value and had no idea that Tey and some other aspects portrayed (her late ‘lover’ and the play, for starters) were real until I read it in the author notes at the end. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Not very favourably though. In fact, I probably took off a star for this fact alone. (I might have felt better about this if I’d known about it beforehand.) Terry, though, shares with Gielgud the danger of being homosexual in an era in which male relationships brought disgrace and imprisonment. Part of Upson's purpose in adding her own 1930s mystery story to those written at the time is to be franker and less judgmental about gay and lesbian culture than contemporary authors were able to be.

An Expert In Murder

Hedley has seeks an alibi for the time of Elspeth's murder. Penrose is unconvinced that Josephine was not the intended victim. Then we have the central mystery itself which isn't really revealed until you're a good three quarters of the way through the book and then it's not so much revealed as it is dropped directly onto the reader's head. I don't have a problem with that per say but its problematic here because instead of having anyone discover anything a character we've never met up till this point simply descends on everyone and exposits the entire thing to the detective investigating the crimes. Then the crime itself ends up being really, really dramatic to the point of absurdity. The only thing that keeps everything from going entirely off the rails is Upson's writing and the sincerity she imbues her characters with. They may be stereotypes but dammit they're sincere stereotypes. and intrigue, and more death follows. We meet the leads in the play, Johnny and Lydia; the two are presumably based on the real life leads in the best-selling run, John Gielgud, whose career it, arguably, made, and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. This book is dense, very, very, verrrryyy dense. It's also very well written, down right beautiful at times, and once or twice utterly revolutory. That is when its not being a melodramatic soap opera populated with stereotypes and mustache twirling villains.