An Expert in Murder (Josephine Tey)

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I suppose most people would think it silly to get as engrossed in theatre as I do, or to put such value on stories that other people make up, but for me it’s much more than a play.

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. 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. 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. It sounded to be just what I enjoy most - an historical mystery, set in England with an interesting main character.by Agatha Christie – a recently discovered stand alone novel by the Queen of Crime that I thought was utterly marvellous, made me laugh and left me guessing. North London was the city at its most forbidding and, despite the widening of the streets, its most claustrophobic.

Historical crime novels are all too often heavy on detail and atmosphere but light on plot, but that accusation could never be levelled at An Expert in Murder. A huge fan of the theatre, and Josephine’s play, she is terribly excited to meet Tey and, although somewhat embarrassed, Tey finds she is warmed by Elspeth’s happiness and enthusiasm. Yet occasionally there are so many characters known by both first and last names I got slightly confused and would have to back track some pages.Richard of Bordeaux had brought success, but success brought a relinquishing of privacy which, though necessary, was not easily or willingly given. Standing back against the window to allow everyone else to gather their belongings, they took a minute to compose themselves sufficiently to leave the compartment. Even from a distance, there was an air of calm about her, a quiet containment in the resolute stance that held its own beauty. She still looked more like a school teacher or one of those solitary women you saw writing letters in the corner of a hotel lounge. I could wish the series were simply based around him – though that might wind up being more Roderick Alleyn than Alan Grant.

Nicola Upson meets all of these challenges with great skill and manages to produce a compelling novel with strong characters. Summary: The first in a new crime series featuring author Josephine Tey offers the atmosphere of London theatre in the nineteen thirties with a plot that will keep you guessing right up to the end. By March, it was not uncommon for the year to have offered Lydia at least three different versions of the love of her life, but Marta had survived to enter victoriously into a fourth month of tenure. 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. By the end of the novel, the strongest impression I was left with was not a clever mystery puzzle but of a deeply compassionate story about the damage done to men by the war, the vulnerability of women and how the theatre could help them achieve independence and the small ways in which we all fail ourselves and each other.

Detective Inspector Archie Penrose could never travel in the King’s Cross area without feeling instantly depressed.

However, Tey is a different matter and I found myself thinking she would actually hate this kind of attention. This is something which, unless I’m mistaken, is more acceptable in England than in the US; it never bothered me before I learned it was a Bad Thing, and rarely since, but it bothered me here. Her conversation did not entirely mask the series of tough blows that life had dealt her: abandoned as a baby, then claimed again only to have her second chance at happiness destroyed by a conflict which she was of no age to understand–if such an age existed. As the two scrabbled on the floor for stray sweets and loose change, they looked at each other through the legs of the other passengers, and laughter soon won out. Elspeth studied the menu and, when the waiter arrived, chose a no-nonsense steak and kidney pudding.In that briefest of moments, somewhere between waking and oblivion, between life and death, she was aware of all she would miss but the longing was soon over, replaced as she fell to her knees by a lasting, if premature, peace.