BRAT FARRAR
Other titles: COME AND KILL ME (in US reprint, Pocket Books,
1951)
UK publication: 1949 (Peter Davies)
US publication: 1950 (Macmillan)
Detective: Brat Farrar
Plot summary and comments: Brat Farrar is neither detective nor policeman, but a criminal who initially becomes involved through his own greed, although his motives become more honorable. The plot revolves around substitutions and mistaken identities. The action takes place at an isolated estate, Latchetts, where twin girls and their older siblings are cared for by Aunt Bee. There had been male twins, too, but Pat (the older) had died, leaving Simon as the heir. Brat, arriving in England from abroad, impersonates Pat in order to lay claim to the inheritance, at the instigation of the unpleasant Alec Loding. An eventual showdown leads to Brat's discovery of the truth about Simon and Pat, and Brat's being added to the family.
THE DAUGHTER OF TIME
UK publication: 1951 (Peter Davies)
US publication: 1952 (Macmillan)
Detective: Inspector Grant
Plot summary and comments: A "crime in the past" novel like few others, and probably Tey's most well-known book. Inspector Grant is in hospital, recuperating from a back injury, and when his friend, the actress Marta Hallard, arrives with books to occupy him, he becomes interested in the historical accounts of the murder of the little princes by Richard III. Beginning from a study of the faces of the characters (like many Tey characters, Grant frequently puts great stock in faces) he decides that the historical solution to the mystery of the disappearance of Richard's two nephews is almost certainly wrong. Grant delves into history, including Thomas More's contemporary account of the king, and finds evidence that makes More a prejudiced witness. Marta sends him an American research assistant, Brent Carradine, and the two of them convince themselves, by studying the accounts of the character witnesses and an examination of who would benefit, that Richard was innocent, and find a more likely suspect. The history is not original to Tey, but the case is well made, and a more engrossing novel is hard to find, despite the fact that Tey breaks all the usual rules of detective fiction.
THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR
UK publication: 1948 (Peter Davies)
US publication: 1948 (Macmillan)
Detective: Robert Blair
Plot summary and comments: A novel based on a historical theme and put in a modern setting. Small-town lawyer Robert Blair is telephoned by Marion Sharpe, who with her mother is accused of kidnapping a teenage girl called Betty Kane. The police, in the form of Inspector Grant, have already arrived when he visits their isolated house ("The Franchise", which gives the book its title). Kane, who was missing for a month, claimed when she reappeared that the Sharpes had imprisoned, beaten, and enslaved her. Blair, nominally the Sharpes' lawyer, takes a personal interest and begins investigations, trying to discredit Betty Kane, while Scotland Yard proceeds with the case and village feeling runs against the Sharpes. Kane's story is finally overturned in a dramatic courtroom denouement. Afterwards, Blair cannot bear to go back to his placid old life, and follows the Sharpes to Canada, where he means to marry Marion. The plot is based largely on the Elizabeth Canning case, from 1753, and there is (in the end) no actual crime committed but perjury; the book's interest is in its solid plot and polished, artistic writing, some of Tey's best.
THE MAN IN THE QUEUE
Alternate title: KILLER IN THE CROWD (in abridged US reprint,
Mercury, 1954)
UK publication: 1929 (Methuen)
US publication: 1929 (E. P. Dutton); republished 1956 (Macmillan)
Detective: Inspector Grant
Plot summary and comments: Tey's first novel, originally published under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot, and later republished as a Tey book. In a sense, the book is a practice run for Tey's later A Shilling for Candles-- the plot of the latter is an extension of the former, but many of the weaknesses of Man in the Queue are rectified in the later work. The initial action begins immediately after an unidentified man standing in a theatre queue collapses with a knife in his back. Grant is assigned to the case; identifying the victim takes almost half the book. The dead man's identity is ferreted out, and Grant begins to look for the man's fellow lodger, who seems to be the most likely suspect. He stumbles across the man in London and tracks him to the Scottish Highlands, where Grant captures him but begins to have doubts about the case. The real solution arrives out of the blue as the threads are being finally unraveled. The plot is based on coincidence and the ending is 'cheating'-- it is not foreshadowed and could not have been suspected by the reader. These weaknesses aside, Grant is a very strong character and one sees the first signs of Tey's superb writing.
MISS PYM DISPOSES
UK publication: 1946 (Peter Davies)
US publication: 1948 (Macmillan)
Detective: Lucy Pym
Plot summary and comments: Tey temporarily shelves Inspector Grant in favor of Miss Lucy Pym, a retired mistress of French and author of a psychology best-seller. She has been invited to a girls' physical training college by its headmistress (her old friend) to lecture to the students on her subject, and becomes sufficiently drawn into the girls' lives (as well as flattered by the attention she receives) to stay on for a couple of weeks as a guest of the school. Nearly two thirds of the novel is taken up with establishing atmosphere and characterization; finally, as the climactic end of term approaches Miss Pym catches (she thinks) one student cheating on an exam; when this same student is offered a prize position at a prestigious school (in preference to the popular favorite) and then is fatally injured in a gymnastics accident, Lucy is convinced a crime has been committed. She agonizes about what she should do; finally, she takes action, but discovers too late that she has identified the wrong criminal. There is not really any detection in the novel, and Lucy is not much of a detective-- weakwilled and naive, sincere and sensitive, but prone to misjudgement and inattentive to detail. The book itself is much more concerned with characterization and foreshadowing than plot.
A SHILLING FOR CANDLES
UK publication: 1936 (Methuen)
US publication: 1954 (Macmillan)
Detective: Inspector Grant
Plot summary and comments: The plot is very similar to The Man in the Queue, Tey's first book, but the construction of the book is much stronger. The book begins with the discovery of a young woman's body on an isolated beach; initially her identity is unknown, and the young man (Robert Tisdall) who has been staying with her knows her only as Chris. She turns out to have been a film star, Christine Clay, who was respectable but not very lovable. The death is clearly murder, since there is evidence of a struggle, and after some investigation Tisdall (the obvious suspect) is charged with it. He escapes, and it is the chief constable's daughter Erica who finds him (she is an example of Tey's favorite hero type, the intelligent, outspoken, and insightful young woman). Erica finds evidence which convinces Grant that he is in error, and after some wallowing in frustration and self-doubt, he hits on the key and wraps up the case. Tey's characters are very well crafted, with their voices shaping the storytelling, and the plot is much more solid this time around.
THE SINGING SANDS
UK publication: 1952 (Peter Davies)
US publication: 1953 (Macmillan)
Detective: Inspector Grant
Plot summary and comments: Grant is travelling by train to the North, in search of recuperation after a near-breakdown with claustrophobic symptoms; a dead man is discovered on the train, and Grant inadvertently keeps the man's newspaper, on which is written a mysterious little verse referring to the 'singing sands'. The man is identified as Charles Martin, Frenchman, but Grant's intuition causes him to disbelieve the police theory and begin to work on his own. He travels to the Scottish islands in a vain search for the source of the poem, but the distraction begins to cure him, and when the trail finally leads to a group of English pilots flying the Arabian Desert and a 'lost city', the nature of the crime becomes clear. Grant discovers the criminal, but not in time to prevent his suicide; however, he returns to his job with renewed vigor, his illness gone.
TO LOVE AND BE WISE
UK publication: 1950 (Peter Davies)
US publication: 1951 (Macmillan)
Detective: Inspector Grant
Plot summary and comments: Grant is invited to a dinner party given by the author Lavinia Fitch, where he meets the 'disconcerting' but handsome Leslie Searle, a photographer. Searle is invited by Lavinia to the village of Salcott St. Mary, an artists' enclave, to meet her nephew Walter and his fiancee Liz. The colony's various artistic types (parodied ruthlessly by Tey) are stirred up by Searle, who manipulates them cruelly and insinuates tension into the Fitch household by romancing Liz. When he vanishes, presumed drowned, on a canoeing trip, Grant is called in. Walter, the obvious suspect, is interviewed repeatedly, but Grant's famous intuition steers him correctly. The solution, once more, involves past crimes and concealed identities.