Tey Appreciation

You guys, it’s time to appreciate Josephine Tey.

Born Elizabeth MacKintosh, Tey wrote eight mystery novels, including The Daughter of Time, which is considered one of the genre’s great masterpieces.  I’ve now finished reading all eight of them, and here is my report.

The Man in the Queue is a slightly half-baked effort; it’s clear that Tey is still working out what she wants to do in the genre.  A Shilling for Candles is stronger, but still perhaps a little generic.  Miss Pym Disposes is the first one that really feels like a Josephine Tey novel – a novel that straddles the line between crime fiction and literary fiction, in which the characters’ inner lives – their joys and yearnings and frustrations – are accorded much more time and attention than genre impedimenta like suspects and clues.

The Franchise Affair is solid, but too procedural to be really fascinating.  And then comes Brat Farrar, my personal favorite, with all the scope, depth, and feeling of a genuine human tragedy.  If ever a book proved that there is no limit to the resonance of mystery fiction, this book is it.

To Love and Be Wise is deft and clever, but slightly inconsequential.  On the other hand, it’s obvious why The Daughter of Time is reckoned to be Tey’s masterwork; it’s bold and original and massively impressive, and it contributed to the reevaluation of Richard III as a historical figure.

Lastly, but not at all leastly, we have The Singing Sands, a starkly lovely and ruminative work that has the feel of an elegy – which is appropriate, since Tey didn’t live to see it published.  It’s a masterpiece of mood and restrained emotion, in which the mystery component, while present, is almost entirely an afterthought.  In a way, it’s a summation of Tey’s whole approach to crime writing, which is stubbornly humanistic in a field that can often – even in the hands of geniuses – treat its characters more like pieces on a chessboard than living, breathing people.

And that’s it.  That’s the whole canon.  Tey wrote other books, and a number of well-received plays, but her chief legacy is her mystery novels.  The British Crime Writers’ Association named The Daughter of Time as the greatest mystery novel ever written, and although it isn’t even my favorite Tey mystery, it’s hard not to see it as a worthy choice.

For those who are interested – you poor, sad, desperate souls – here’s my own personal ranking of the eight Tey mysteries.  The first four I would recommend without reservation, to anyone who enjoys a good read.  The next two are worthwhile, and the last two missable – though far from bad.  After you’ve read one or two, you may find yourself wanting to become a Tey completist, and I certainly wouldn’t discourage it.  It won’t even take you very long.

1.     Brat Farrar

2.     The Daughter of Time

3.     The Singing Sands

4.     Miss Pym Disposes

5.     To Love and Be Wise

6.     The Franchise Affair

7.     A Shilling for Candles

8.     The Man in the Queue

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