An Expert in Murder
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3.7 • 15 Ratings
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- £6.49
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- £6.49
Publisher Description
'Highly original and elegantly-written ... The first of what promises to be a distinguished series.' P.D. James
Death is not a rehearsal...
It's March 1934, and Golden Age crime writer Josephine Tey is travelling from Scotland to London to celebrate what should be the triumphant final week of her celebrated play, Richard of Bordeaux. However, a seemingly senseless murder puts her reputation, and even her life, under threat. An Expert in Murder is both a tribute to one of the most enduringly popular writers of crime and an atmospheric detective novel in its own right.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Set between the World Wars, this sophisticated thriller is the first in a spellbinding series featuring a fictionalised Josephine Tey: the famed playwright and crime writer. When we first meet Nicola Upson’s alluring heroine, she's travelling by train from Inverness to London, befriending an ardent fan along the way. But a violent murder involving a hatpin and a set of creepy dolls soon draws her into a sadistic killer’s web. Skillfully contrasting the hustle and bustle of theatreland with chillingly depicted murder scenes, Upson’s storytelling is totally addictive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
