Josephine Tey

Nicola Upson blends biography and fiction, excitement and menace, and a touch of Alfred Hitchcock in Fear in the Sunlight, a mystery starring real-life writer Josephine Tey. Summer, 1936: Josephine Tey joins her friends in the resort village of Portmeirion to celebrate her fortieth birthday. Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville, are there to sign a deal to film Josephine's novel, A Shilling for Candles, and Alfred Hitchcock has one or two tricks up his sleeve to keep the holiday party entertained-and expose their deepest fears. But things get out of hand when one of Hollywood's leading actresses is brutally slashed to death in a cemetery near the village. The following day, fear and suspicion take over in a setting where nothing-and no one-is quite what it seems. Based in part on the life of Josephine Tey-one of the most popular, best-loved crime writers of the Golden Age, Nicola Upson's Fear in the Sunlight features legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock as a prominent character-and features the classic suspense and psychological tension that fans of Hitchcock films love.

In this atmospheric, intriguing historical mystery brimming with psychological tension, an unexpected inheritance plunges beloved British mystery author Josephine Tey into a disturbing puzzle of dark secrets eerily connecting the present and the past. When Josephine Tey unexpectedly inherits Red Barn Cottage from her estranged godmother, the will stipulates that she must personally claim the house in the Suffolk countryside. But Josephine is not the only benefactor-a woman named Lucy Kyte is also in Hester's will. Sorting through the artifacts of her godmother's life, Josephine is intrigued by an infamous death committed on the cottage's grounds a century before. Yet this old crime-dubbed the Red Barn murder-still seems to haunt the tight-knit village and its remote inhabitants. Is it just superstition, or is there a very real threat that is frightening the locals? Could the truth be related to the mysterious Lucy Kyte, who no one in the village admits to knowing? With a palpable sense of evil thickening around her, Josephine must untangle historic tragedy from present danger and prevent a deadly cycle from beginning once more.

Josephine Tey, a sharp-witted amateur sleuth based on the celebrated Golden Age mystery writer, returns in the seventh in Nicola Upson's critically acclaimed series, perfect for readers of Agatha Christie and Jacqueline Winspear. Called to the peaceful wooded churchyard of St John-at-Hampstead, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose faces one of the most audacious and unusual murders of his career. The body of the church's organist is found in an opened grave, together with a photograph of a manor house and a cryptic note. The image leads Archie to Cambridge, where the crisp autumn air has brought with it bustling life to the ancient university and town. Mystery author Josephine Tey and Archie's lover Bridget Foley have each recently settled in Cambridge, though both women are not equally happy to see him. One has concealed an important secret from Archie which now threatens to come to light. Meanwhile, the change of seasons has also brought with it a series of vicious attacks against women in town, spreading fear and suspicion through the community. Soon, another body is revealed, and in the shadow of King's College Chapel, Archie uncovers a connection twenty-five years old which haunted both victims-as well as some of their living companions. As Archie and Josephine each grapple with savage malefactors intent on making their victims pay, they must race to stop another attack in this beautifully written, intricately plotted mystery.

At once a compelling murder mystery and a moving exploration of love and grief, critically acclaimed author Nicola Upson's eighth Josephine Tey mystery is a force to be reckoned with. In the summer of 1915, the sudden death of a young girl brings grief and notoriety to Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. Years later, Josephine Tey returns to the same house-now much changed-and remembers the two women with whom she once lodged as a young teacher during the Great War. As past and present collide, with murders decades apart, Josephine is forced to face the possibility that the scandal which threatened to destroy those women's lives hid a much darker secret. 194811Ten Years Earlier2Summer 1915

A snowy Christmas gathering on an island off the Cornish coast goes murderously wrong in this festive Golden Age mystery. December 1938, and storm clouds hover once again over Europe. Josephine Tey and Archie Penrose gather with friends for a Cornish Christmas, but two strange and brutal deaths on St. Michael's Mount - and the unexpected arrival of a world famous film star, in need of sanctuary - interrupt the festivities. Cut off by the sea and a relentless blizzard, the hunt for a murderer begins. Pivoting on a real moment in history, the ninth novel in the Josephine Tey series draws on all the much-loved conventions of the Golden Age Christmas mystery, while giving them the contemporary twist which has come to distinguish the books so far.

It takes a village to bury a child... 1 September 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside. But when a little girl vanishes without a trace, the reality of separation becomes more urgent and more deadly for those who love her. In the chaos and uncertainty of war, Josephine struggles with the prospect of change. As a cloud of suspicion falls across the small Suffolk village she has come to love, the conflict becomes personal, and events take a dark and sinister turn. Blending a Golden Age mystery with the timeless fears of a child's abduction, Dear Little Corpses is an atmospheric snapshot of England in the early days of war.

Violence finds its way to old Hollywood in the eleventh Josephine Tey mystery, perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear. September 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock's Rebecca. Then a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier-a trail that echoes Rebecca's timeless themes of obsession, jealousy, and murder.