Outside a London theatre a throng of people wait expectantly for the last performance of a popular musical. But as the doors open at last, something spoils all thought of entertainment: a man in the queue is found murdered by the deadly thrust of a stiletto…
The Man in the Queue
By josephinetey
Although I agree with others that there is a lot of racism in the book, it isn’t fair to judge a hundred-year-old novel by modern standards of enlightenment. I had never read anything but Daughter of Time by Tey (as a teenager), and I had forgotten what a beautiful writer she is. There’s a reason why her books have endured. You could argue about a lack of authorial experience that reveals itself occasionally, but it sure didn’t spoil it for me. The picture of ’20s Britain is delightful, and I want to read more of this series.
This was the first book I had read by the distinguished mystery writer, Josephine Tey. Her work had been recommended to me over the years and I finally got around to reading her first mystery, The Man in the Queue. It was my introduction to her detective inspector Alan Grant and I must say I liked him and trusted him and enjoyed the way he worked with his colleagues.
The Blurb
Inspector Alan Grant searches for the identity of a man killed in the line at a theater and for the identity of the killer—whom no one saw.
A long line had formed for the standing-room-only section of the Woffington Theatre. London’s favorite musical comedy of the past two years was finishing its run at the end of the week. Suddenly, the line began to move, forming a wedge before the open doors as hopeful theatergoers nudged their way forward. But one man, his head sunk down upon his chest, slowly sank to his knees and then, still more slowly, keeled over on his face. Thinking he had fainted, a spectator moved to help, but recoiled in horror from what lay before him: the man in the queue had a small silver dagger neatly plunged into his back. With the wit and guile that have made Inspector Grant a favorite of mystery fans, the inspector sets about discovering just how a murder occurred among so many witnesses, none of whom saw a thing.
The Review
I had been told that, as this was the first of Tey’s novels, it was not as good as her other books. However, the book starts strongly with a discrete murder amongst those waiting to go into a theatre. DI Alan Grant is in charge of the case and, with the members of his team he investigates the case methodically and interviews all the witnesses.
The evidence points to a dark haired fellow and Grant sees him in the street and gives chase, to no avail. However, Grant follows the trail to Scotland and gives chase. He catches the man and returns home to report to his Superintendent, but remains uneasy that the evidence does not quite stack up. Against his superior’s inclination, Grant continues to investigate and both he and his boss are amazed by what he discovers.
The Author
Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother’s first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels including Scotland Yard’s Inspector Alan Grant.
The first of these, ‘The Man in the Queue’ (1929) was published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot , whose name also appears on the title page of another of her 1929 novels, ‘Kit An Unvarnished History’. She also used the Daviot by-line for a biography of the 17th century cavalry leader John Graham, which was entitled ‘Claverhouse’ (1937).
Mackintosh also wrote plays (both one act and full length), some of which were produced during her lifetime, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. The district of Daviot, near her home of Inverness in Scotland, was a location her family had vacationed. The name Gordon does not appear in either her family or her history.
Elizabeth Mackintosh came of age during World War I, attending Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham, England during the years 1915-1918. Upon graduation, she became a physical training instructor for eight years. In 1926, her mother died and she returned home to Inverness to care for her invalid father. Busy with household duties, she turned to writing as a diversion, and was successful in creating a second career.
Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of her novels, ‘A Shilling for Candles’ (1936) as ‘Young and Innocent’ in 1937 and two other of her novels have been made into films, ‘The Franchise Affair’ (1948), filmed in 1950, and ‘Brat Farrar’ (1949), filmed as ‘Paranoiac’ in 1963. In addition a number of her works have been dramatised for radio.
Her novel ‘The Daughter of Time’ (1951) was voted the greatest mystery novel of all time by the Crime Writers’ Association in 1990.
Miss Mackintosh never married, and died at the age of 55, in London. A shy woman, she is reported to have been somewhat of a mystery even to her intimate friends. While her death seems to have been a surprise, there is some indication she may have known she was fatally ill for some time prior to her passing.
Val Penny
Isn’t it a treat that a mystery written nearly a century ago can still seem so clever, fresh and inventive? I’d never read any Josephine Tey before, and since I like to start at the beginning, I picked up this, her first full-length novel, and I am looking forward to plowing my way through the rest of them.
It has some issues, most notably a rather weak ending that in its final sentence dangles the possibility that our narrator (who lapses occasionally, and not very succesfully, into the first person) has withheld a few of Inspector Grant’s deductions that would change our view of the outcome. That, I found annoying, but in large part I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery.
Inspector Alan Grant is nicely developed – a good-looking man with a “Bond-style” flair for fashion, but he’s not just a pretty face. Tey has hinted at a backstory (a Midlands upbringing, an inheritance of some kind, a stint in WWI, a love of fishing) and given him some foibles, self-doubts and capabilities for self-examination that make him a very appealing character. There are also a number of minor characters among the Scotland Yard team who are all given their share of individuality, which makes their scenes and dialogue that much richer.
The plot revolves around a man being stabbed to death while waiting in line at the theater, and Grant is given almost nothing to go on to build his case. The dead man has nothing that identifies him, nobody claims him or reports him missing, and nobody in the very busy “queue” seems to have noticed anything amiss until he dropped onto the pavement.
In sympathy with his challenge of piecing something together from nothing, we follow Grant into various London neighborhoods – from drawing rooms to boarding houses to race tracks – and watch him steadily build a solid wall of circumstantial evidence against his suspect that he’s not sure he trusts. It’s a great window into the emotional and mental turmoil of a detective who is occasionally outfoxed by witnesses and who wonders if the evidence is leading him in the right direction at all.