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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Iris on a Train, October 13, 2008
"In both crimes there was a terrifying lack of humanity, a mockery of the dead which chilled him (Penrose) even more than the loss of life itself." There is an old-style elegance to this richly atmospheric mystery set in the world of the theatre during the early 1930's. Mystery writer and playwright Josephine Tey is the central character in this story of a shocking murder onboard a train. The investigation slowly reveals a tangled web of events harking back to the Great War, the complexity of which is only illuminated at the end, showing just about everyone remaining to be a victim in the tragedy. Nicola Upson has written a beautiful and involving mystery which transcends the genre. By framing her novel around Josephine Tey, it allows her to paint a vivid picture of the period and the emotions still lingering after the Great War. You really feel like you are in Tey's era while reading this. While Tey could have become just a plot device in another author's hand, she becomes a real person, as do many of the other characters, including her romantic interest, Inspector Archie Penrose. Tey's most successful play, which made Sir John Gieguld a star, is where danger lies. But it is on a train from Scotland to London where Josephine meets a special young woman full of life and simple charm. On her way to meet her boyfriend, Elspeth will meet evil and not live to know the reasons why. Upson paints a sweet and romantic picture of the times themselves, and Elspeth, giving her murder a poignancy which tells the reader right away that this mystery is going to be something special. As Archie investigates and Josephine mingles, every character is fleshed out in a way we used to see during Tey's era of great mystery writers. Josephine takes a back seat during the middle portion of the book as we are treated to lovers and sickness and old wounds and bitterness, all creating an intricate mystery which has the reader wondering how any of this touched the far removed adopted girl who closed her eyes for the last time onboard a train to London. But then a second particularly vile murder much closer to Josephine's play takes place. Archie and Josephine begin to untangle the ties which led to the murders from different angles in the last portion of the mystery. There is an exciting rush to reach the end for the reader, by now aching to discover the entire twisting series of events that began in a tunnel during the war and ended tragically on a train bound for London. There is a tenderness to the conclusion, showing the anguish and aftermath of the Great War and the many lives it took, some in ways unexpected and far reaching. Archie and Josephine's relationship does not go untouched by events either, giving the reader a thirst for more. This is a fine, atmospheric mystery with much to offer those who enjoy a good novel which just happens to be a great mystery as well. Highly recommended!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pseudonymous, August 25, 2009
Josephine Tey was a wonderful British mystery writer, now less often read. [See my review of the collection THREE BY TEY for a further appreciation.] It was a daring stroke of Nicola Upson's to write a new murder mystery with Tey at its center. But "Josephine Tey" is a pseudonym for Elizabeth Mackintosh (1896-1952); under another pseudonym, "Gordon Daviot," she wrote a play, RICHARD OF BORDEAUX, which rocketed John Gielgud to fame and broke West End box-office records. Upson's novel is set in the closing week of the run, in 1934, and Gielgud appears in it thinly disguised as "John Terry," together with several other theatrical personalities of the period. The backstage passions of the theatrical world make a fine background to a murder mystery, just as they do in the mysteries of Tey's contemporary Ngaio Marsh ( ENTER A MURDERER and others). But Upson exaggerates a good deal, and the picture will be less convincing to those who know the profession. More serious is the fact that with so many real characters in the story (no matter how disguised) the list of potential murderers is much reduced. Another problem is that Upson keeps shifting her viewpoint. The Tey character is more confidante than detective; the person actually in charge of the case is her sometime love interest, Inspector Archie Penrose. Not only does the narrative keep switching between these two characters, but it also includes chapters seen through the eyes of still others including, perhaps, the murderer. One thing that Upson does extraordinarily well is to channel the narrative style of Tey herself, exactly catching the soft-core romanticism of novels of the period. But, unlike the real Tey (or Marsh, or Christie), who was more concerned with preserving a past vision of British life, she wrestles openly with the specters of the 1914-18 war. In this, she resembles a much more recent author, Jacqueline Winspear, whose MAISIE DOBBS series mines the same ground. Upson emerges well from the comparison, but her novel is not perfect. Four weeks after reading, I find I have totally forgotten who did it, and recall not caring much at the time either; yet I will certainly remember the book for its texture, theatrical setting, and period feel. [3.5 stars]
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Murder Mystery, well-paced, great history, characters and settings, August 1, 2008
This review is of an Advanced Reader Copy, and originally appeared at www.duskbeforethedawn.net. This murder mystery, the first in a new series, features London settings, the West End and the stage, an excellent historical period (England between WWI and WWII). What more could you ask for? Well, for one, a plot where you cannot guess "whodunit", which is the main reason I do not read very many mysteries. But Ms. Upson does herself proud: the plot is intricate and well thought out, the characters engaging and flawed, and the scenery described in detail but not boringly or intricately so. Josephine Tey has authored the hottest play in London and takes the train from Scotland to see the plays closing and visit with friends. She meets a female fan on the plane but shortly after their arrival in London, that fan is murdered on the train (a murder on a train in a mystery?). The murderer dresses up the scene of the crime to indicate the act had something to do with Josephine's play, and a second murder the next day occurs directly connected to the play. Josephine's friend Inspector Archie Penrose leads the investigation, which begins to point to the actors and others associated with The New Theater in London. Obviously to give away more would spoil the surprises, but the novel is populated with great characters: * Lydia, the leading lady of the play, who has a new female lover named Marta and is being told she is aging toward the end of her starring roles; * Aubrey, owner of The New Theater, wealthy, producer of the play, maker of careers, veteran of World War I as a tunneler, and carrying claustrophobia and a desire for vengeance from an occurence in the war; Ms. Upson's descriptions give excellent background here (from page 50 of the ARC): "Today, as usual, he rejected the convenient option of a ten-minute journey to work courtest of the city's underground railway and set off on foot. The peculiar atmosphere evoked by London's tunnels was not for him, and he never failed to wonder at the willingness with which people now accepted darkness and confinement as a naturla part of their day-to-day existence. For Aubrey, the lingerings, acrid smell of those subterranean passageways brought back ghosts from a past he tried in vain to forget. Too old at forty-five to take part in the trench war but with a distinguished military record behind him, he had spent those terrible years as a tunneler in the guts of the French earth and had no wish to return to its horrors in his waking hours as well as in his nightmares." * Fallowfield, Inspector Penrose' sergeant. The historical setting and it's descriptions reminds me of Pat Barker's Regeneration series; though it is set in a slightly earlier timeframe, the depiction of those who experienced and/or were affected by WWI is key to that time period and this story. Enjoyable, well-paced and I look forward to the next in the series.
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