Josephine Tey – The Man in the Queue (1929)

Preamble

As I read and write and think a lot about detective and crime fiction, I’ve a series of reviews on the theme. Sadly, capacity is too limited to cover detective films and TV series too! If you’re interested in reading my academic work about detective and crime fiction (free PDFs available), check it out here.

Or you can take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies: preorder now!

Review (4 out of 5)

This is the first Tey novel that I have read, and it was entirely by good fortune that it is the first in the Inspector Grant series. I had in mind that I should read some Tey soon, and I happened to spot this on the shelf in the library in an idle moment. So often, the same circumstances lead to me starting with the second novel of a series, so this felt fortunate!

The novel opens with an intriguing scene that generates an equally intriguing crime: a man, stabbed in the back, without any identifying features or anyone having seen a thing. He might have been stabbed a second before his fall or some time before; the queue’s crush would have held him up regardless. The scene-setting here was evocative and offered a wonderful set up with various false threads for us and Grant to pick apart as the novel progress, and this is a strength throughout. (I particularly enjoyed Grant being observed through the doors and curtain of a restaurant kitchen!)

I found it rather charming that Inspector Grant was not all that competent in this novel. He forgets some basic legwork—such as locating the dead man’s luggage after he learns that he had a ticket to sail to the US the next day—and declines to pursue suspicious behaviour on the part of the dazzling musical star simply because, we must suppose, she is dazzling, and perhaps because he had met her before. Failing to question his assumptions and to question others, getting set off down a wrong track, are all-too-human errors. The realpolitik of his position when he distrusts his arrest but knows that he is obliged to see through the presentation of the plausible case for the prosecution, is played lightly, and in more modern fiction would likely generate a great deal more angst. Nevertheless, Grant does follow his instincts in continuing to worry away at the puzzle and, although the solution in the end falls into his lap, he is at least wise enough to be able to seize it rather than dismiss it, as his fellows wish to do.

There are some overwritten passages here—the word ’embonpoint’ appears noticeably, and therefore too many times, for example—and some world-building around Grant that perhaps does not contribute to the novel itself, but to the wider ‘universe’, but overall the writing was a pleasure. The novel is also buoyed up by an intriguing cast of well-drawn additional characters, in particular the prime suspect, the nurse whom he charms, and the Scottish laird whose hospitality and assistance is vital to Grant’s ability to bring his quarry in.

I’m looking forward to reading some more Tey!

Take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies: preorder now!

Dominique Gracia