The man in the queue
Josephine Tey

It was a real joy to read Josephine Tey again after years and years, and everyone – and I mean everyone – enjoyed reading her too. Her prose was wonderful – hugely evocative – and despite this book being first published in 1929 it didn’t really feel dated in the slightest, apart from some anachronisms, which actually added to it – like her phrase ‘as common as grandfather clocks’ meaning something that everyone’s got, and not the opposite as it would mean today.

Her characterisation was superb, and the way she built up the evidence then took it apart again and gave us a twist was fantastic. Most enjoyable perhaps were the descriptions of the Scottish scenes, with all her sniping at the Highlanders. No love lost there, it seemed, especially as she left all her estate to the English National Trust and not the Scottish National Trust that had been well established by her death, meaning the ENT still benefits richly from the sales of her books today.

Publication Information

Publisher: Arrow
ISBN: 9780099556725