Tey, Josephine - To Love and Be Wise (1950)

A

Tey’s best detective story.  It has an original, well worked out plot, something very rare in Tey.  The plot is the same as Freeman’s The Mystery of Angelina Frood and Rendell’s Sleeping Life: ***a woman disguises herself as a man***.  The problem of the main disappearance is a genuinely strong one, with some good clues: shoes, gloves, and an empty space in a photographic box (the MISSING CLUE, always tantalising—c.f. Sayers’s Five Red Herrings and many Ellery Queen novels), and it’s the only Tey to have a SURPRISE! ending.  Excellent confrontation at end—shows Tey’s sympathy.

Good village, populated by Crime Queens, and with a river.

Nick Fuller.