# | Year | 1st Read | Title | Author(s) | My Rating | |
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1 | 1929 | 2016 | (1) The Man in the Queue Cover Blurb | Josephine Tey | | |
| From amazon.com:
The first of the author's novels starring the popular Inspector Alan Grant traces the mysterious slaying of a man waiting to see a London musical, whose neighbors in line insist they saw nothing.
Set in London, this classic murder mystery introduces Inspector Alan Grant, who is charged with sorting out not only the identity of a victim, but the logistics of the stabbing itself, which occurred in a dense crowd of theater-goers, none of whom saw anything. | |
2 | 1936 | 2016 | (2) A Shilling for Candles Cover Blurb | Josephine Tey | | |
| From epubbooks.com:
Beneath the sea cliffs of the south coast, suicides are a sad but common fact of life. Yet even the hardened coastguard knows something is wrong when a beautiful film actress is found lying dead on the beach one bright summer’s morning. Inspector Grant has to take a more professional attitude: death by suicide, however common, has to have a motive – just like murder.... | |
3 | 1948 | 2016 | (3) The Franchise Affair Cover Blurb | Josephine Tey | | |
| From epubbooks.com:
Robert Blair was about to knock off from a slow day at his law firm when the phone rang. It was Marion Sharpe on the line, a local woman of quiet disposition who lived with her mother at their decrepit country house, The Franchise. It appeared that she was in some serious trouble: Miss Sharpe and her mother were accused of brutally kidnapping a demure young woman named Betty Kane. Miss Kane’s claims seemed highly unlikely, even to Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, until she described her prison – the attic room with its cracked window, the kitchen, and the old trunks – which sounded remarkably like The Franchise. Yet Marion Sharpe claimed the Kane girl had never been there, let alone been held captive for an entire month! Not believing Betty Kane’s story, Solicitor Blair takes up the case and, in a dazzling feat of amateur detective work, solves the unbelievable mystery that stumped even Inspector Grant. | |
4 | 1950 | 2016 | (4) To Love and Be Wise Cover Blurb | Josephine Tey | | |
| From epubbooks.com:
When a young strikingly handsome photographer mysteriously disappears, it’s up to Inspector Alan Grant to discover whether he accidentally drowned, committed suicide, or met his death at the hands of one of his many female admirers. | |
5 | 1951 | 1992 | (5) Daughter of Time Cover Blurb | Josephine Tey | | |
| Josephine Tey re-creates one of history's most famous - and vicious - crimes in her classic bestselling novel, a must read for connoisseurs of fiction, now with a new introduction by Robert Barnard.
Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains - a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England's throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes in the Tower.
The Daughter of Time is an ingeniously plotted, beautifully written, and suspenseful tale, a supreme achievement from one of mystery writing's most gifted masters.
"The unalloyed pleasure of watching a really cultivated mind in action! Buy and cherish!" - Boston Sunday Globe
JOSEPHINE TEY is considered one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. She died in 1952. | |
6 | 1952 | 2016 | (6) The Singing Sands Cover Blurb | Josephine Tey | | |
| From epubbooks.com:
On sick leave from Scotland Yard, Inspector Alan Grant is planning a quiet holiday with an old school chum to recover from overwork and mental fatigue. Traveling on the night train to Scotland, however, Grant stumbles upon a dead man and a cryptic poem about ‘the stones that walk’ and ‘the singing sand,’ which send him off on a fascinating search into the verse’s meaning and the identity of the deceased. Grant needs just this sort of casual inquiry to quiet his jangling nerves, despite his doctor’s orders. But what begins as a leisurely pastime eventually turns into a full-blown investigation that leads Grant to discover not only the key to the poem but the truth about a most diabolical murder. | |