A review by danon17
Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey

dark sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This meets the bar of my favourite mysteries being tragedies.

One of the most propulsive books I've read for a while, but it takes the time to really make you care about the characters, and flesh them out. You know what's coming but it makes you wait and wait. And just when you're wondering whether it has been a mystery at all, it twists the knife in a way that makes the ending twice as satisfying. Perfectly delivered, as a mystery.

But I remember (I could check my old review here) getting the sense from 'The Daughter of Time' that I wouldn't have liked Tey as a person. There's a nasty racism that surfaces regularly in this novel. It can't be waved away as a sign of the times - it's worse than that. It's always completely gratuitous and included almost pointedly rather than an accidental, stumbling reveal of an author's ignorance. I don't personally buy it as strictly character detail either. It has the nasty conviction of coming from a writer who believes "well we all think this, don't we?". It's a Breakfast at Tiffany's (film) type situation - there are about four, easily excised, sentences that shame the whole thing. Would unequivocally have it as one of my favourites if not for them
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