cyphomandra

The concept behind this grabbed me straight away - Josephine Tey, the writer, as a detective - and the Guardian review where I came across it was relatively approving, so I picked it up. And regretted it, as it annoyed me so rapidly that I started taking notes while still reading. This did mean that I had to take back an aggrieved note about "means of death described not remotely consistent with pattern of injury" when the Scotland Yard pathologist showed up and said exactly the same thing (he would have been my favourite character for this if, alas, he'd actually had a personality) but, on the other hand, it kept me going through the unlikely, grinding plot. I do not get the feeling that the author is at all comfortable with the sort of plotting required for successful detective stories, and I say this as someone who spent last week extracting a nonfunctioning crime plot from a friend's novella and attempting to put a slightly more coherent one back in - it's not an uncommon flaw, but it helps if there are other strengths to camouflage it (pace, character, setting, another plotline, humour, anything...) and there weren't here for me. And this is supposed to be the first in a series.

Snippy and fairly specific comments beyond the cut. No actual plot spoilers, largely because I don't think the plot makes sense.

( Nicola Upson, An expert in murder. )