I've always been very fond of one particular author of mysteries which are mostly set in England although she was Scottish--Josephine Tey. She is the mystery savant's favorite: she only published eight novels, and as she died in 1952, there haven't been any new ones for quite some time. Until now, which means beginning in 2008 and continuing currently. A writer named Nicola Upson, whose bio in her books says she lives in Cambridge and Cornwall, which are two rather charming places to live, has so far produced a series of nine "Josephine Tey" mysteries, in which her detective is joined in some manner or other by the character Josephine Tey, the mystery writer.
Tey, as it happens, was also a playwright, and her most successful drama, produced in the West End in the early 1930's, was Richard of Bordeaux, about Richard II forms the setting for Upson's first Tey novel. The play was a success, running a year and a half, and starred a young actor named John Gielgud: it helped to make him famous at an early age. Her other plays were not as popular, but one that featured Mary Queen of Scots had another two members of the renowned English acting trio who all acquired the prefix "Sir" before their names, Ralph Richardson, who was followed in the part of Lord Bothwell, Mary's second husband, by Laurence Olivier, who of course ended up as Lord O.
The plays were written under the name of Gordon Daviot, Daviot being a small town near Inverness, which was where Tey was from. And to make the story one more bit complicated, Tey herself used that name for the novels, but her real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh, The most famous of the novels is The Daughter of Time, in which her detective, Inspector Alan Grant, is laid up in a hospital bed so he is given a book about reversing Shakespeare's verdict of guilty on the last of the Plantaganets (recall that Elizabeth I was a Tudor, and the house's founder, Henry VII, was the Richmond who defeats and terminates Richard III at the end of that play). Probably because Richard III was one of Shakespeare's greatest villains, his play attracts more performances than another good Shakepearean classic, Richard II.
Anyway, Tey did such a fine job in her effort to rehabilitate Richard III, claiming that he did not murder the Princes in the Tower, that although most historians still disagree, she was responsible for reigniting the centuries-old argument about his guilt. The controversy persists today, largely because people still enjoy reading The Daughter of Time. My introduction to Tey was being sent The Daughter of Time from England in the late 1950's by an English cousin named, of all names, Josephine. It also should be noted that the Crime Writers Association in England voted this novel "the greatest mystery novel of all time" in 1990.
A more recent e "Tey" novel, Fear in the Sunlight, takes place at Portmeirion, and Upson mixes fictional and real life characters (whose actions in the novel are fictional). Portmeirion is a village resort in Wales which was reconstructed in the 1920's and the novel is based on Tey's negotiating with Alfred Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville, to turn her novel, A Shilling for Candles, into a movie, which ended up being called Young and Innocent, one of his last made in England. I plan to try to see it because although Hitchcock altered Tey's plot, it is said, almost beyond recognition, it has been heralded as his finest film made in England. You might also associate Portmeirion with the china made there, of which the original Botanical pattern is the most famous.
Tey was shy and avoided publicity as much as possible. Her character in Upson's novels is true to her nature but also captures both in her depiction and behavior and in the novel itself, her marvelous, sophisticated style. All of Tey's novels are worth reading: two of the most praised were early ones, Brat Farrar and The Franchise Affair. With a third good one, Miss Pym Disposes, they were collected in a volume entitled Three by Tey. I happen to like both A Shilling for Candles and To Love and Be Wise, two later ones, as well as her first, The Man in the Queue, and the last, published posthumously, The Singing Sands.
That last one is often regarded as the least of her work, perhaps because she never was around to put the final touches on it, but its opening scene in King's Cross station--a favorite locale for Tey, who often took the train from Inverness down to London, often to be involved in productions of her plays--where as Grant boards the night train to Scotland, he sees the rail porter every passenger tried to make sure never came near, Murdo Gallacher, known as Old Yoghourt, who was both lazy and delinquent--example, he rarely managed to serve a cup of tea to a passenger but if he did, the tea would be weak, the sugar and cream jugs dirty, and the spoon missing.
Tey almost rejoices in pointing out that one passenger has finally gotten revenge on Yoghourt, causing im more bother than any other and which he cannot slip away from: a dead body is discovered in his sleeping car. Not that he was the murderer, but now he will be enveloped in hours of questioning and being made to go over the details again and again when he normally would be sleeping in lieu of taking care of his passengers' needs.
Not only does Nicola Upson capture Tey's own personality but she in many ways provides a new version of her wonderful writing style. Here are nine more novels--I'm still making my way through them--that give you some more enjoyment in the great tradition of Josephine Tey.
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