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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Not her best book, but well worth reading, nonetheless.
I am thoroughly enjoying working my way through Josephine Tey’s series of detective novels featuring Detective Inspector Grant, and have found all of them very entertaining, but this one (the third) is the best yet. The main character isn’t DI Grant, in fact, but a country solicitor called Robert Blair, who gets pulled into a case against his will, for someone he barely knows, and finds himself compelled to solve the mystery and help his client. The characters are all extremely well-written - likeable, engaging and all absolutely necessary for the story (unlike another detective novel that I read recently) and the story is really good, such that I stayed up far too late last night reading it! I’m really looking forward to starting the next one in the series - so far each one has been better than the last so I have high expectations!
This was a pretty fun book. Robert Blair is a sleepy, small town lawyer, dealing mostly in wills and property issues. He's called by Marion Sharpe about a problem she and her mother are having. Against his will, he agrees to meet with them. Then he is drawn into their plight.
It seems that Marion Sharpe and her mother are women of modest means who inherited a large house known as The Franchise. The Franchise sits on the outskirts of town, behind a high brick wall with an opaque iron gate for access. A young woman, Betty Kane, claims that the two women kidnapped her, starved and beat her, and tried to force her to become their servant. This went on for about a month.
Well, it's true that Betty Kane disappeared for about a month, but Blair is convinced that the Sharpes are innocent. Just how to prove it? He has to find where Betty Kane had actually been hidden. So, he takes up a bit of the life of a detective, a bit of a Sexton Blake" (I'd never heard of Sexton Blake, but it appears that back in the day he was a fictional detective every bit as famous as Sherlock Holmes or Philo Vance).
Anyway, this was a fun read, but a bit disturbing. "What was disturbing?" you might ask. Well, it seems that blue-eyed people are either oversexed or else plausible liars, likely given to murder too, depending, it seems on the shade of blue. Well, I have blue eyes, although I've no idea how to characterize their shade. I'd hate to think I was oversexed or murderous. But, who is to say?
For the terminally curious of you, here are the pertinent quotes:
It seems that Marion Sharpe and her mother are women of modest means who inherited a large house known as The Franchise. The Franchise sits on the outskirts of town, behind a high brick wall with an opaque iron gate for access. A young woman, Betty Kane, claims that the two women kidnapped her, starved and beat her, and tried to force her to become their servant. This went on for about a month.
Well, it's true that Betty Kane disappeared for about a month, but Blair is convinced that the Sharpes are innocent. Just how to prove it? He has to find where Betty Kane had actually been hidden. So, he takes up a bit of the life of a detective, a bit of a Sexton Blake" (I'd never heard of Sexton Blake, but it appears that back in the day he was a fictional detective every bit as famous as Sherlock Holmes or Philo Vance).
Anyway, this was a fun read, but a bit disturbing. "What was disturbing?" you might ask. Well, it seems that blue-eyed people are either oversexed or else plausible liars, likely given to murder too, depending, it seems on the shade of blue. Well, I have blue eyes, although I've no idea how to characterize their shade. I'd hate to think I was oversexed or murderous. But, who is to say?
For the terminally curious of you, here are the pertinent quotes:
"She is oversexed. ... I have never known anyone—man or woman—with that colour of eye who wasn't. That opaque dark blue, like a very faded navy—it's infallible"and
"there's a particular shade of baby blue that condemns a man....before he has opened his mouth. Plausible liars every one of them....Given to murder too, come to think of it...."
This classic novel from mystery's golden age was the June read for the DorothyL Book Discussion group. I'd read it years ago, in my teens, and remembered the basic plot but few of the details. It's the story (based on a real-life incident) of a teenaged girl who turns up at her adoptive parents' home after being missing for a few weeks, saying she was being held against her will in an isolated house by two elderly women. Of course, the women assert that they have no knowledge of the girl, and their solicitor Robert Blair endeavours to clear them from suspicion. This is nominally an Alan Grant novel, but we actually see very little of the good Inspector.
A great example of Tey's wonderful writing!
A great example of Tey's wonderful writing!
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Mid-book review (I'll update when I'm done). It's an interesting concept, but it seems to drag out too long, and Inspector Grant is barely in it.
Update: the book would have been much better with the last chapter, which felt tacked-on.
Update: the book would have been much better with the last chapter, which felt tacked-on.
I was excited to find this author- we share a birthday. Or an astrological sign, or something. I adore mysteries, and premise and plot-wise, this doesn't disappoint. The Sharpes, mother and daughter, live in a large, gloomy looking-house in the English countryside. Betty Kane is a sweet-faced teenager who comes home after having vanished for a month, with severe bruises on her body. She claims the Sharpes kidnapped her and put those bruises there. Everyone believes her, of course. She's too pretty not to believe. But one person doesn't. Robert Blair, attorney. And he's determined to clear the Sharpes of the charges.
The prose and dialogue are flawless. So why the three stars? Well, it's evident that the author was extremely politically and socially conservative- and she uses the novel as a soapbox for her personal views. Which is beyond annoying. Not to mention that decent evidence comes into people's hands whenever someone prays. Oh- and the 'villains' are one-dimensional beyond belief. So, if none of the above would annoy you, dear reader, please proceed.
The prose and dialogue are flawless. So why the three stars? Well, it's evident that the author was extremely politically and socially conservative- and she uses the novel as a soapbox for her personal views. Which is beyond annoying. Not to mention that decent evidence comes into people's hands whenever someone prays. Oh- and the 'villains' are one-dimensional beyond belief. So, if none of the above would annoy you, dear reader, please proceed.
Fun book. I'm still reading things at an excruciatingly slow pace so I definitely didn't enjoy it like I should have. But fun to read something out of my mileau. It felt like a lot of B&W movies that I watched as a kid in the summers when I was obsessed with AMC.