An Expert in Murder

April 21, 2008
Mystery writer Josephine Tey (The Daughter of Time
) makes a convincing sleuth in British author Upson's debut, the launch of a new whodunit series. On a train journey from Scotland to London in 1934, Tey meets a fan, Elspeth Simmons, who's traveling to the capital to attend a performance of Tey's hit play about Richard II. When Simmons is found brutally murdered—stabbed with a hatpin, posed with some dolls and partially shaved—after arrival at King's Cross, Tey's Scotland Yard friend, Insp. Archie Penrose, investigates and soon learns that the victim was adopted under irregular circumstances. After another death, the evidence suggests that both crimes are linked to a murder committed amid the devastating trench warfare of WWI. While the heroine falls conventionally into the killer's clutches before a solution many will anticipate, the engaging prose will leave even readers unfamiliar with Tey's fiction eagerly looking forward to the next in the series.

Starred review from June 1, 2008
Some books just grab readers and never let go. Using classic mystery author Josephine Tey ("The Daughter of Time; The Franchise Affair") as her detective protagonist, debut novelist Upson has written an original mystery as finely plotted as any of Tey's works. Set in 1934 London, when Tey was enjoying success as a playwright, the novel opens as she is traveling by train from Scotland to London for the final week of her hit play "Richard of Bordeaux". But the murder of a young woman Tey meets on the train leads her into danger. Upson changed the names of the cast for her novel but interviewed the actual actors who performed (inclucing the late Sir John Gielgud), which gives her novel an authenticity that allows readers to wander through the streets of London and feel close to those who lived there. We can only hope that the next adventure of Miss Tey will be out soon. Fans of Tey, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and other writers of mystery's "Golden Age" (191939) will put this on their reserve lists. Highly recommended for all mystery collections.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2008
Josephine Tey moves from classic real-life crime writer and playwright to unwilling fictional sleuth in this atmosphere-laden cozy. Tey is journeying from her home in Inverness to London in 1934, to see the final week of her hit play. She befriends a young woman who enters her carriage; of course, the woman is a completely agog fan. Tey disembarks in London; the woman reenters the carriage and is promptly murdered. A disturbing feature of the murder is its staging: the victim is propped up to look in admiration at two dolls who seem to be representing one of Teys scenes. What may be disturbing to the reader is the forced link between Detective Inspector Archie Penrose, who finds the body, and Tey herself; theyre longtime friends, inevitably drawing Tey into the inside of the investigation. Fun for historical details and backstage bits, though the machinery of the mystery is too obvious.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)