Some parts are very unbelievable

I suppose for a first book in a series, this book wasn’t all bad but...

Josephine Tey is a writer who, whilst on a train journey from her home in Inverness to London, meets a young girl who claims to be one of her biggest fans. Later, the young girl is murdered. Josephine’s friend, Archie, is the detective assigned to the case and he soon becomes worried that perhaps Josephine was the intended victim. This idea is not such a leap when someone involved with the theatre production of Josephine’s play is also murdered.

Upson changes point of view from Josephine and Archie to a lot of the minor characters. This was obviously to increase the suspect pool but, at times, I found it was too much. Upson would have done better to have just Josephine or Archie discover some of the mystery plot points by actually detecting rather than revealing them to the reader via supporting characters.

Josephine and Archie for the most don’t really have any apparent skills when it comes to sleuthing. There’s million clues left at the scenes of the crimes but neither makes any links between them and the murderer. As is often the case in cosies, they basically just stumble across the answers to the mystery and the identity of whodunnit.

However, what is a little rarer in cosies was the graphic and gruesome portrayal of the murders and the murder scenes (the placement of the dolls in particular made me wonder if this was a horror story for a moment). This seemed odd for the genre (which this book is obviously being marketed towards). If I’d been involved in the editing, I’d have advised that this, along with the amount of swearing, should have been reined in for a cosy's target audience.

Actually, overall, the writing often felt too modern for the time setting of the book (a few years after WW1). I thought there was a few out of place references, especially when it came to the romantic relationships of the characters. Upson/the characters continually referred to Josephine’s late boyfriend as her ‘lover’. I feel like such an open acceptance and admission that he and Josephine were in an intimate relationship was incorrect for the time. (I must point out I never got a sense that the term ‘lover’ was meant to indicate anything less sexual between the characters.)

Two characters in a lesbian relationship also constantly use the term lover for each other and again, it felt a clunky term for the time setting of the book. (Actually it feels a clunky term for 2019. Maybe it’s something said more in the US and just seemed jarring to me? I don’t know.)

I wavered on the way the women’s gay relationship was portrayed. Okay, the characters were part of the acting community and as such would have been accepted by their peers more than in general society but for not one single character to mention their bravado of having an openly gay relationship in that era seems a little fanciful. It would have made more sense for the characters to be occasionally referred to as 'companions' than 'lovers'.

Meanwhile, some other society issues of the time (especially women’s rights, or lack of, I should say) became a little preachy.

Another huge issue I had with the book was the amount of chapters I had to wade through after the crime was solved. I have discovered I am more of a fan of finding out whodunnit and closing the book. Upson went into great detail of the murderer’s motivations and reasons for committing the crime, along with the affects this had on the other characters. It went on for several chapters and I think this should have been culled down considerably.

The parts in the final chapters focusing on Josephine and Archie’s almost romance even became boring. A shame, because I had enjoyed their scenes together up to that point.

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.)

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.

However, the book has made me want to read more of real life Tey’s books. I’m a little perplexed by why she isn’t as well known today as some of her contemporaries, despite how apparently successful she was when she was alive.

As for this book's Josephine Tey? I will probably give the next book in the series a go. Maybe some of the problems I have this time around will be less noticeable as Upson settles more confidently into the series.

3 out of 5

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