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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Not as strong as I had hoped, and I was surprised to find it a bit of a slog despite the short length. The central mystery, whilst certainly interesting at times, never really felt like a genuine mystery to be solved. And the assumptions and preconceptions about characters based on their appearance got really tired after a while.
I had never read anything by Josephine Tey, but I certainly intend to rectify that after reading The Franchise Affair. Deftly plotted, I appreciated a mystery novel that does not require a murder in order to create the mystery. Not only that, but Tey has her characters work to prove a negative, something else I don't often come across. I enjoyed this novel immensely.
REREAD:
The review I'm about to give is going to seem much more negative than a 3.5 rating would imply, but partly it's because, as far as I can recall, I liked the book a lot the first time I read it- I think I saw it as kind of "upmarket Miss Marple" if that makes sense. It didn't have the Christieish charm but it was well written and had an interesting story.
This time, though, I was irritated the whole time I read it. The book is written with so much smugness and contempt that it gets downright unpleasant. I kind of got the idea that Marion Sharpe was meant to be a Tey self-insert, and Robert Blair felt like (as he in fact was) a middle aged man written by a middle aged woman, not real-feeling at all. So much more of the book than I remembered was dedicated to snobbishly mocking the townspeople for being too stodgy and conservative and Nevil's fiancee and family for not being conservative enough and pretty much everyone else for being too lower-class and who knows what else- and much LESS of the book than I remembered was dedicated to actual detection, with the final resolution being the result of a combination between luck and shoe leather.
Part of the problem is that you never have any doubt thatBetty is lying or that Marion and her mother will be vindicated . The immediate impressions that Robert gets of everyone at the start of the book are paid off by the end- he is right about and correctly judges the whole situation, which means there's nowhere for the book to go but "hey, all the stuff that we said would pan out did, the book's over." There's no tension left by the end at all, and even Betty Kane, who did something objectively awful in accusing innocent people of a felony in a manner which ruins their lives, ends up seeming pathetic rather than actually evil by the end, in a way that makes Tey/her proxies seem kind of excessively vicious toward her . That last bit people might disagree with me on, but honestly I just thought it was over the top.
I'd add, too, that this book has no sense of humor, despite having some wit. It takes itself seriously in a way that Agatha Christie never does and never would. In terms of atmosphere I'd compared it to The Moving Finger, which isn't as well written and is objectively sillier in many ways but is ten times more fun because Christie has a great sense of humor. If Christie wrote this book it might stilldepict Betty as freakishly evil- she has a weird way of writing about lower class children , but there would be an actual plot and intrigue, the main characters would be fallible and would live, and it would feel like the plot actually moved and shifted. Christie was in many ways conservative but she had a curiosity about others that is completely absent here. The whole book just feels like a middle aged woman yelling at the world.
The review I'm about to give is going to seem much more negative than a 3.5 rating would imply, but partly it's because, as far as I can recall, I liked the book a lot the first time I read it- I think I saw it as kind of "upmarket Miss Marple" if that makes sense. It didn't have the Christieish charm but it was well written and had an interesting story.
This time, though, I was irritated the whole time I read it. The book is written with so much smugness and contempt that it gets downright unpleasant. I kind of got the idea that Marion Sharpe was meant to be a Tey self-insert, and Robert Blair felt like (as he in fact was) a middle aged man written by a middle aged woman, not real-feeling at all. So much more of the book than I remembered was dedicated to snobbishly mocking the townspeople for being too stodgy and conservative and Nevil's fiancee and family for not being conservative enough and pretty much everyone else for being too lower-class and who knows what else- and much LESS of the book than I remembered was dedicated to actual detection, with the final resolution being the result of a combination between luck and shoe leather.
Part of the problem is that you never have any doubt that
I'd add, too, that this book has no sense of humor, despite having some wit. It takes itself seriously in a way that Agatha Christie never does and never would. In terms of atmosphere I'd compared it to The Moving Finger, which isn't as well written and is objectively sillier in many ways but is ten times more fun because Christie has a great sense of humor. If Christie wrote this book it might still
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
adventurous
dark
mysterious
relaxing
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No