Too much. ( )

Once again, Upson combines real people with fictional characters and what is, I assume, a very fictionalized Josephine Tey (not her real name). Specifically, M.R. James wrote ghost stories and told them to his students at Cambridge on Christmas Eve. Some of his stories are referenced in the book.
Josephine is alone in Cambridge, England, setting up an apartment. She is involved with a serial rapist, who really terrorized Cambridge, but in the 1970s, while Archie Penrose (who I assume is based on Inspector Grant in Tey's books) is trying to find a serial killer. There is some connection between the two sets of crimes. The mysteries work; as usual, I did not guess whodunit.
In Josephine's personal life, people must deal with balancing the openness of friendship and promising to keep a secret. It seems to me that someone is killed because it may be useful for future story lines. ( )

1937 and a series of rapes in Cambridge is being investigated. DCI Archie Penrose (who really is the main character of this book) is also in Cambridge following upleads found at the site of the murder of Dr Stephen Laxborough, who's body was found in London. And as Cambridge is where Josephine Tey and her lover have decided to live, (I have obviously missed some pertinent details about this fictional Miss Tey's life by not reading a few books in the series), Tey is able to assist Penrose when asked.
Took a while for my interest to become engaged in this book, it just about kept my interest until the end. Unfortunately I find the character of Penrose to be of more interest that Tey's which will probably be the only reason I will go back and read some of the missing series.
A NetGalley Book ( )

There's a serial rapist  on the loose in Cambridge (we're talking inter-war period !)where Josephine Tey is taking care of her friend's house. Meanwhile a body (apparently burried alive)is found in a London churchyard and certain clues are left with this victim .But as more bodies are discovered they all seem to lead to Cambridge, more precisely to King's College and their famous choir.
Fact is, I never read anything by Josephine Tey but I liked the idea of having a real(crime)writer on the premises .The interaction between Miss Tey and a very gallant (and still smitten )inspector is adorable (not corny, not sugary,just from time to time awkward ).The mystery (a serial KILLER on the loose )is of a very sound quality. I,personally, enjoyed it. Who needs more... ( )

I am not sure what I really felt about this novel. It is the latest instalment of a series featuring the writer Josephine Tey who solves crimes with her friend, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose. I haven’t read the previous volumes, so I recognise that my criticisms might not be entirely fair.

The principal plot, which involves the murder of various Cambridge alumni who had been among the favoured coterie of celebrated writer M R James, noted for his powerful ghost stories, was very gripping. Owing to the prominence of the victims, the Metropolitan Police Force, in the person of Penrose, leads the investigation. Penrose is a very sympathetic character, and shows none of the curmudgeonly personal quirks now almost compulsory among fictional detectives.

Unfortunately, I felt that the scenes involving Josephine Tey added nothing of value to the story. Perhaps if I had been more familiar with the backstory unfolding over the previous volumes, I might have been more engaged with her part in the book, but as it was, I found that the main plot could have withstood her complete removal.

I have to concede that there may be some subconscious bias operating here. I remember reading, and enjoying, Josephine Tey’s best known novel, The Daughter of Time, when I was about thirteen. This novel famously addresses the issue of whether King Richard III was guilty of the murder of the Princes in the Tower, and whether his customary portrayal as an evil and scheming figure was fair. I read it again as an undergraduate, once again enjoying it. A few years ago, however, Penguin Books reissued her novels in a new edition, and as it coincided with the news coverage of the recovery of Richard’s body from beneath a Leicester car park, I thought it might be interesting to read The Daughter of Time once again. That time around I found it utterly impenetrable, and mired in relentless smugness, not just in the personality of the deeply self-satisfied Inspector Alan Grant, but in the tone of the narration itself. I tried grappling with another of her books, The Man in The Queue, and found it similarly unappealing. ( )