Review by Booklist Review
Two serial offenders are terrorizing elements of the British populace in this Josephine Tey mystery. Scotland Yard DCI Archie Penrose discovers that the horrible murder of a church organist is just the first committed by an imaginative killer who's targeting several men who were together decades earlier at King's College, with each death patterned after a ghost story written by their beloved provost Montague Rhodes Jame, who wrote under the name M. R. James. At the same time, Cambridge police are after a rapist whose crimes are taken seriously by DI Tom Webster, if not by all of the men on the force. Archie calls on Josephine for research help in pursuing the killer, as she worries that a secret (revealed in London Rain, 2016) will damage their longtime friendship. The seventh in this accomplished series featuring author and amateur sleuth Tey is a skillful blend of fact and fiction with compelling plotlines and vivid evocation of 1937 England. Upson deftly provides just enough backstory so that new readers will not be adrift, as she advances the personal lives of the principals who eventually face something worse than a secret untold.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A series of murders inspired by the ghost stories of English author M.R. James challenges Scotland Yard's Det. Chief Insp. Archie Penrose in Upton's superlative seventh outing for Penrose and his close friend and investigative assistant, real-life mystery author Josephine Tey (after 2016's London Rain). One day in 1937, Penrose is summoned to St. John's-at-Hempstead, a north London graveyard, where the body of church organist Stephen Laxborough was found in a tomb with the stone slab on top pushed back a little. The dead man was evidently buried alive, based on the horrific evidence of his desperate efforts to escape the tomb. Compounding the mystery is the presence in the grave of a torn photograph depicting a manor house; scrawled on a piece of paper in the victim's breast pocket is the sentence: "What is this that I have done?" This evidence leads Penrose to Cambridge, where his lover, Bridget Foley, and Josephine have both recently settled. A series of attacks on women in the university town ups the ante. Upson successfully incorporates moving and complex interpersonal conflicts involving her main characters into an intricate, credible whodunit story line. Agent: Gráinne Fox, Fletcher & Co. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In Upson's latest "Josephine Tey" mystery (after London Rain), DCI Archie Penrose finds himself in Cambridge, England, chasing a killer who dispatches victims in a macabre and gruesome manner. His longtime friend, mystery writer -Josephine Tey, has recently relocated to Cambridge with her lover Marta Fox. The university town itself is under the shadow of a series of attacks against women. As Archie attempts to unravel a mystery that has its roots in the King's College choir prior to World War I, Josephine struggles with a secret that she knows will change Archie's life forever. The threads of the story weave in and out; sometimes breaking into two separate tales, sometimes twisting together. The culture of England between the two World Wars come vividly to life. VERDICT Fans of historical British mysteries, such as Jacqueline Winspear's "Maisie Dobbs" series, will delight in this old-fashioned whodunit starring characters with depth and heart.-Terry Lucas, Shelter Island P.L., NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
