An Expert In Murder

The Sunday Age

Sunday May 11, 2008

Lucy Sussex

AN EXPERT IN MURDER

Nicola Upson

Faber & Faber, $32.95

A recent fad in detective writing is name-recognition, with the sleuth already famous. R. N. Morris uses Petrovich (from Crime and Punishment), and Nicola Upson uses crime writer Josephine Tey. Tey was the pen name of Elizabeth Mackintosh (1896-1952), who also wrote plays as Gordon Daviot. Upson recycled her biographical research on Mackintosh as this book, which draws on Daviot's most famous play. Tey travels from Scotland at the end of the play's 1934 London season, and her travelling companion is murdered. John Gielgud was in the cast of the play and inspires a character. Similarly, Upson does not use Tey's police hero, but creates her own - though the two are alike. Gay and lesbian characters also figure, which, in Tey's time, seldom appeared in fiction. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is how Upson evokes the dread burden of World War I, which drives both characters and murders. Her evocation of stage life, while authentic (Upson has worked in theatre) is a little too busy. The result is not Tey, who was genuinely innovative, but does portend an interesting mystery series.

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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