Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 *HOMAGE TO THE INCOMPARABLE JOSEPHINE TEY* September 17, 2008
Choosing Josephine Tey to 'star' in a mystery series is a bold move. How can anyone match her? My expectations were unrealistic & Nicola Upson's novel is crowded with so many other characters that perhaps too many pages are necessitated? Detective novels often present history that is colored more by one's wishes than truth it seems to me.
'Setting the stage' is what a writer of plays does. For me, the neighborhoods & countryside of Britain can never be described too often, whereas my imagination filled in much of what was not spelled out about D.I. Archie Penrose, for example. Having read & reread Tey's stories for decades, I could infuse her character as a reluctantly successful playwright with depth & personality drawn from characters who peopled each of her books (particularly my favorites: "Daughter of Time," "Brat Farrar" and "The Franchise Affair").
Sometimes persons wanting to post opinions on amazon.com seem to gallop to cross the finish line & either skim the book or make careless errors. To mix fact with fiction can be 'tricky' but author Upson has probably filled notebooks with possibilities for future mysteries without expecting all to hit home with every reader? She has already given this reader many hours of profitable recreation.
Good luck to the author and cheers to all who bring homage to Tey, a great writer. If new, younger readers are set on the path of "discovering" Josephine Tey's books, extra thanks. Let Nicola Upson nudge all of us toward rereading the incomparable Tey!
 Not quite good enough August 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I so wanted to like this book. I have read the Josephine Tey novels and many others of the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction and was hoping for something along the same lines. The mechanics of the plot were well worked out but the characterisation lagged well behind. Time and again we were *told* what someone was like, detailed descriptions of their pasts, thoughts, reactions and characters but we were never *shown*. Everybody talked the same, and nearly everybody had the same reactions - including as someone has said, the complete acceptance of homosexuality by all but one character.
I was also made uncomfortable by the appropriation of Ms Tey's life in order to write fiction around it, all the more as John Guilgud was decently psuedonymised.
I'm not sorry I read it, but I probably won't look out for any more in the series
Pleasant and well-written without being particularly memorable July 27, 2008
Josephine Tey, the real-life writer of `golden age' crime fiction, is on a train travelling to London and to negotiate the future of her play `Richard of Bordeaux.' Then, a Young girl that she strikes up a conversation with is found murdered and her policeman friend, Archie Penrose, is convinced that there is a link to Josephine and the play. The novel brings London between the wars to life, and addresses the psychological impact of the fighting.
This is a very pleasant read, the characters are well drawn and the plot is involving and hangs together well. My only issue with the novel is that, as I read a lot of crime fiction, I didn't find a lot that was new about this book and therefore I don't think that it will be particularly memorable. Don't let you put this off though; this is a perfectly respectable read.
 What a disappointment! July 19, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
As an admirer of Josephine Tey's detective novels, I bought 'An Expert in Murder' in the expectation of a great read. After all, Nicola Upson's idea of combining real lives and events with fictional characters set during the Golden Age of detective fiction seemed, well - novel. It just doesn't work. First, her heroine (Josephine Tey)and hero (D.I Archie Penrose) have absolutely no depth or substance. Indeed, Penrose, who is required to do very little sleuthing anyway, is as wooden as a fence post and about as attractive. The other characters have little to recommend them either. The plot is not only convoluted, it is ridiculous. Sorry, but I was completely unable to suspend my disbelief. There is no sense of period at all and the fact that all the characters appeared to accept a number of homosexual and lesbian relationships (even though they were in the theatre) as completely normal with no comment whatsoever from any of the straight characters and those who weren't part of the theatre is ludicrous. This book is set in 1934 when gays faced long prison sentences and were subject to the worst kind of blackmail! That the Penrose character also acccepted them beggars belief - as a policeman he was duty-bound to arrest them! To be fair, there were a couple of decent bits in the books: a few descriptions of the horrors of the trenches in the First World War. But these have been done better in many other works and it's simply not worth buyng this book for them. I certainly won't bother with any follow-ups.
Very good May 20, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an extremely interesting crime story set in the 1930s; the mystery is absorbing, the writing excellent and the characters interesting and likeable. The inclusion of real-life '30s detective writer Josephine Tey, about whom we convieniently know very little, so the author can take whatever liberties she likes with her life, makes it even more charming and the fact that it is not her that does the detecting helps to keep it realistically plausible. The portrayal of the "lost" generation, which came out of WW1, and how that war affected the mindset of an entire country takes it to a whole other level, as the book becomes worth reading in its own right, regardless of the mystery angle.
My only possible objection is that it doesn't seem to stay true to the period in certain aspects. For example, homosexuality certainly existed and I am willing to believe that in the theatre world it was even more or less excepted, but the idea that a homosexual couple would kiss in public, when homosexuality was an actual crime, is a bit of a stretch. However, anybody but a contemprary writer is bound to get at least a few things wrong, so this does not detract greatly from the novel.
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