Her concept of the investigator who often makes mistakes and has to recalibrate is also fantastic, and the novel inadvertently has become a piece of historical writing: it's thoroughly enjoyable to keep reminding oneself that Grant can't just use a mobile phone, or look up a suspect's address in "the system". She was born in Inverness and taught in various schools in Scotland and England but moved back to the Highlands to look after her father and continued to write there.Tey was a fantastic writer, and her mystery novels are peppered with beautiful set-pieces, elegant descriptions and minor characters sketched with scythe-like precision. Josephine Tey was of course a Scottish writer and not English as I read recently on another blog. I don’t know if that’s true or not though. Mind you I did read somewhere that Spanish/Italian people didn’t regard the word Dago as derogatory as it’s a corruption of the name Diego and so as far as they are concerned it’s just the same as being called Jimmy. In 1929 this was regarded as normal I suppose but its definitely un-PC now. The only other thing that I have to say is that the word Dago is used prolifically throughout The Man in the Queue – describing a man of dark Mediterranean appearance.
So if you enjoy vintage crime books you should definitely give this one a go. This kept me guessing all the way to the end and I can’t say that about all mysteries. Nobody else in the queue had noticed anything unusual and the body has nothing on it which would help to identify it.īit by bit Inspector Grant uncovers his identity and the action switches to the Highlands of Scotland and a man-hunt which is every bit as good as any written by John Buchan.
There’s such a crush that he is dead for some time before he falls down as the crowd had kept his body upright. It’s set in London to begin with and a man has been knifed in the back whilst he was standing in a theatre queue.
It’s also far better than The Franchise Affair which always seems to be the one which people are recommended to read. It just absolutely hit the right spot for me at the moment. I read Tey’s Daughter of Time recently and I thought that it was really good but I liked this one even more.
This book was first published in 1929 and it’s another Inspector Alan Grant mystery.
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